• Bao-Ge Qu, Wei-Min Bi, Bao-Teng Qu, Tao Qu, Xing-Hai Han, Hui Wang, Yuan-Xun Liu, and Yi-Guo Jia.
• From the Department of Gastroenterology (B-GQ, X-HH, HW, Y-XL, Y-GJ), Taishan Hospital, Taishan Medical College; Surgery for Gastroenterology (W-MB), Taian City's Central Hospital, Taian; Department of Anesthesia (B-TQ), Zhaoyuan People's Hospital of Shandong Province, Zhaoyuan (TQ), Shandong; and Department of Ultrasound (TQ), Zhuhai Campus of Zunyi Medical College, Zhuhai, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2016 Apr 1; 95 (15): e3399e3399.

AbstractMost previous studies have been single case reports, and studies with large samples are presently lacking. In addition, no studies have investigated the associations between the clinical characteristics and prognosis of hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach (HAS). The aim of this study was to explore the associations of different clinical characteristics with the ages, serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels, and survival times of HAS patients. The present study was conducted using the CBM disc, HowNet, Wanfang and VIP data resource systems, and PubMed. According to the PRISMA Flow Diagram, certain case reports from the same center, those that did not provide patient age or sex, and those that did not report serum AFP levels or AFP immunohistochemistry results were excluded. A total of 131 relevant articles, including 124 case reports, 5 reviews, and 2 postgraduate Master's theses, were reported in the above-mentioned five databases. We applied inclusion criteria to case reports on the clinical characteristics and prognosis of HAS, which resulted in the ultimate inclusion of 180 patients from 62 case reports for statistical analyses. The main finding was that the age of the men was significantly higher than that of the women (P = 0.004). In addition, the serum AFP levels of the participants with antral disease were significantly higher than those with nonantral disease (P = 0.001). The median serum AFP levels and survival times significantly differed among the patients with the three lesion types (P = 0.001 and 0.019, respectively). The serum AFP levels of the participants with ulcerative-upheaval-type tumors and purely ulcerative tumors were significantly higher than those with upheaval-type tumors (P = 0.000 and 0.017, respectively). In addition, the serum AFP levels of the participants with ulcerative-upheaval-type tumors were significantly higher than those with ulcerative-type tumors (P = 0.019), and their survival time was also significantly higher (P = 0.000). The serum AFP levels of the participants without metastasis or liver metastasis were significantly lower than those with metastasis or liver metastasis (P = 0.000 and 0.000, respectively), and their survival time was significantly longer (P = 0.000 and 0.001, respectively). Finally, the survival time of the participants treated with surgery was significantly longer than those treated using nonsurgical methods (P = 0.046). However, survival analysis revealed that the survival time was only significantly associated with the presence of metastasis (P = 0.002) and liver metastasis (P = 0.036). The main limitations of this study are as follows: it was a retrospective analysis of published case reports, the clinical data were incomplete, and the cases included in subgroup analyses were different. Our study results have demonstrated that the prognosis of HAS patients is poor. In addition, the survival time is significantly negatively correlated with the presence of metastasis and liver metastasis.

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