Prognostic Significance of Extracapsular Invasion in Gastric Cancer

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic significance of extracapsular invasion and its
relationship with clinicopathological data in gastric cancer .
Patients and Methods: A total of 190 patients with primary gastric carcinoma underwent total and
subtotal gastrectomy between 2013 and 2020 were included in the study. 133 (70%) were men, and 57
(30%) were women. Tumour invasion beyond the lymph node capsule was diagnosed as extracapsular
involvement. and evaulated in addition to histological type, lymph node positivity, lymphovascular and
perineural invasion, depth of invasion, and numbers of lymph no de metastasis.
Results: 136 patients (71.4%) had lymph node metastasis. Of these, 87 patients (64%) had extracapsular
invasion. Of the cases with extracapsular invasion, 36 (65.5%) were differentiated and 51 (63%) were
undifferentiated and perineural - lymphovascular invasion was seen in 68 (68%) and 80 (68.4%) cases,
respectively. A statistically significant association was observed with extracapsular invasion in terms of
perineural invasion (p=0.01), lymphovascular invasion (p=0.008) and depth of invasion (p=0.001) and
number of metastatic node (p=0.001). Extracapsular invasion was not associated with sex, histological
type, and resection type. In the multivariate analyse, the risk of extracapsular invasion is 5,501 higher
in those with cardia localization. Those with perineural invasion have an 11,44 higher risk of having
extracapsular invasion.
Conclusion: Cases with extracapsular invasion are associated with poor prognostic parameters. It
should be included in the future staging system of gastric cancers and pathology reports should include
information about extracapsular invasion.