Marital status likely key factor in predicting early stage gastric cancer survival

Marital status is likely to be an important contributory factor in predicting long term survival in people with early stage gastric cancer, suggests research published online in the Journal of Investigative Medicine.

It should be added to the usual list of clinical and personal variables used to inform how long a person is likely to live after diagnosis, say the researchers. the prognostic value of marital status has been recognised for people with cancers of the liver and the lung, it isn't included in the list of predictive survival factors for early stage gastric cancer.

The researchers took clinical information that had been entered into the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 3647 patients diagnosed between 2010 and 2015 with early stage gastric cancer-that hadn't spread beyond the stomach to other parts of the body.

The following variables were included: age at diagnosis (in 10 year blocks from under 40 to 90–100); race; gender; tumour site; molecular findings (histology); grade (appearance of cancerous cells); spread to the lymph nodes (stage); surgery; lymph node removal; chemotherapy; radiotherapy; tumour size; insurance; and marital status.