Clinical Study of Signet Ring Cell Carcinomas of the Stomach

Yang, Woo Suk; Kim, Hyeong Rok; Kim, Dong Yi; Kim, Young Jin; Kim, Shin Kon

Abstract

From among the 1485 patients with gastric cancer who had gastric resections at the Department of General Surgery, Chonnam National University Hospital, from January 1986 to December 1995, a clinical study was made of 104 patients (7%) who had signet ring cell carcinomas. Patients with this form of cancer tended to be younger and female; the tumors were smaller and involved the stomach body and antrum rather than the cardia, but none of these findings was significantly different from the findings for other types of gastric cancer. Mucosal and submucosal tumor were more prominent in gastric canner, and lymph-node metastases were statistically less likely to be present in signet ring cell carcinoma (p<0.05). The tumor stage of signet ring cell carcinomas tended statistically to be early (I) rather than advanced (III, IV) in comparison with those of other types of gastric cancer. The ploidy pattern of signet ring cell carcinomas was tended to be diploidy (80.7%) rather than aneuploidy (19.3%), and this finding was statistically significant compared with those of other types. Surgery was more curative in cases of signet ring cell carcinoma (92.3%) than in cases of other types of gastric cancer (73.4%), and the 5-year survival rates were 43.7% for patients with signet ring cell cancer and 32.8% for those with other types of gastric cancer (p<0.05). In patients with signet ring cell gastric cancer, the lesion is less extensive; thus, these patients probably can expect a longer survival time and good prognosis.