Reply: Prognostic Significance of Host- and Tumor-related Factors in Patients with Gastric Cancer

Excerpt

We find Hottenrott’s letter [1] most interesting as he states that lymph node status was one of the prognostic factors in previous reports on gastric cancer. Preoperative lymph node status in the present study was evaluated by endoscopic ultrasonography and computed tomography. The performance found was similar to that of prior studies, in which results ranged from 67 to 90% [2, 3]. The rates of accuracy for depth of tumor and lymph node status in our study were 78 and 71%, respectively. The N/L ratio has been shown to have an independent prognostic value in a variety of cancers, including lung, colorectal, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers and cholangiocarcinomas. Although ours was a retrospective study, our prognostic model is expected to predict cancer-related prognosis of gastric cancer. We will validate how this prognostic model is useful for large prospective studies. …