The prognosis of operated early gastric cancer is quite excellent and the 5-year survival rate shows to be over 90%. The less extensive treatment has been considered to be attractive. However, lymph node metastasis remains a main risk factor for recurrence of early gastric cancer. The author performed this study in order to determine which clinicopathologic factors of early gastric cancer influence lymph node metastasis and recurrence.

A retrospective study was conducted on 222 patients with early gastric cancer who had been treated by gastrectomy combined with D2 or more extended lymph node dissection between January 1991 and December 1997 at the Department of Surgery, Kyunghee University Hospital.

Lymph node metastasis was observed in 26 patients (11.7%), and the depth of tumor invasion and tumor size among clinicopathologic factors affected lymph node metastasis. The 5-year recurrence rate was 4.4%, and it was revealed that lymph node metastasis and depth of tumor invasion had a greater effect on recurrence than other clinicopathologic factors.

The high risk factors of early gastric cancer in recurrence were submucosal tumor invasion, tumor size more than 2 cm, and lymph node metastasis. Patients of early gastric cancer with such high risk factors should undergo radical gastric resection than limited surgery.