Yang D et al. – This is the largest study of metastatic gastric cancer patients from the SEER registry to show that age, gender, and tumor location are significant independent prognostic factors for overall survival in patients with metastatic gastric cancer.

• Extracted data from US NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries
• Compared OS for patients with metastatic gastric cancer by gender, age, and ethnicity using Cox proportional hazards models
• 13,840 patients (&ge 18 years) identified from 1988-2004
• Males and females categorized by age grouping and ethnicity

• 19% of Hispanic patients diagnosed < 45 years of age as compared to 5.5% of Caucasians
• Caucasian patients and men more likely to be diagnosed with tumors in gastric cardia (P<0.001)
• In survival analysis, women had lower risk of dying as compared to men (P<0.001)
• OS diminished with age (P<0.001)
• Median OS 6 months in patients of &le 44 years old as compared to 3 months in patients &ge75 years
• Gender differences in OS significantly varied by race and tumor grade/differentiation (P for interaction = 0.003 and 0.005)