• Yu Bai and Zhao-Shen Li.
• Digestive Endoscopy Center, Department of Gastroenterology, Changhai Hospital, Shanghai, China.
• J. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 2011 Nov 1;26(11):1626-9.

Background And AimThe number of clinical reports of very young (<35 years) patients with gastric cancer are limited. We aimed to investigate the endoscopic and clinicopathological features and long-term prognosis of this unique group of patients.MethodsA prospective endoscopy database review of all consecutive very young patients with gastric cancer was performed. The gender, age, clinical features, endoscopic and pathologic findings, and long-term survival of these very young patients were analyzed and compared with those of elderly patients.ResultsA total of 210 patients were included with a median age of 31 year, 60.0% was female, and 34.3% presented with alarm features, 19.0% reported family history of gastric cancer. 58.1% of these cancers were located in gastric body, 33.8% were located in the antrum. 63.8% of these cancers were found to be diffuse type; 18.1% of patients underwent curative surgical treatment, and the 5-year survival rate was 42.1%.ConclusionsThe study describes that very young patients with gastric cancer were mainly females, who were less likely to present with alarm features, but had a high frequency of family history of gastric cancer; and the majority of these cancers were located in gastric body, and they had similar long-term prognosis compared with elderly counterparts if curative surgical resection was performed.© 2011 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

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