Tumour deposits are a significant prognostic factor in gastric cancer - a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

AIMS: Tumour deposits (TDs) are clusters of cancer cells in the soft tissue that are discontinuous from the primary tumour. In this review we are exploring their relevance for prognosis in patients with gastric cancer. METHODS AND RESULTS: A literature search was performed to identify studies providing data on TDs and prognosis in gastric cancer patients. Eight papers were included in the meta-analysis, which was carried out in terms of risk ratios (RR) and hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Of 7445 patients, 1551 had TDs (20.9%). TDs were associated with a decreased overall survival (OS) in univariate (HR = 2.82, 95% CI = 1.9-4.3) and multivariate analyses (HR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.3-2.1). TDs were also associated with known prognostic factors such as synchronous metastatic disease (RR = 9.5), invasion depth (RR = 1.8), lymph node metastasis (RR = 1.7), lymphatic invasion (RR = 1.7), vascular invasion (RR = 2.6) and poor differentiation (RR = 1.2). CONCLUSIONS: We found a strong indication that TDs are independent predictors of prognosis in patients with gastric cancer; hence, TDs should be included in the staging of gastric cancers.