Background: Early gastric cancer is defined as a gastric carcinoma confined to the mucosa or submucosa regardless of lymph node status, and it has an excellent prognosis with a 5-year survival rate of more than 90%. From 1985 to 1995, we encountered 266 cases of early gastric cancer in our hospital.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of the 266 cases of early gastric cancer was performed to evaluate the prognostic significance of clinicopathological features (age, gender, tumor size, tumor location, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, histological type, lymphatic invasion, vascular invasion, histological growth pattern, cancer-stromal relationship and type of operation).

Results: The overall survival rate of all the patients with early gastric cancer was 95.7%. In univariate analysis, the statistical significant prognostic factors were regional lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0004), lymphatic invasion (P = 0.0053) and cancer-stromal relationship (P = 0.0016). Absence of lymph node metastasis and lymphatic invasion, and a medullary-type histopathology were associated with improved survival. In multivariate analysis, the statistically significant prognostic factors were lymph node metastasis and cancer-stromal relationship.

Conclusions: Presence of lymph node involvement and a scirrhous type of gastric cancer are associated with poor prognosis. Lymph node dissection with gastric resection is necessary for patients with early gastric cancer who have a high risk of lymph node metastasis. Postoperative chemotherapy is recommended for a scirrhous type of early gastric cancer.