Marital Status Is a Prognostic Factor for Cardiovascular Mortality but Not a Prognostic Factor for Cancer Mortality in Siewert Type II Adenocarcinoma of the Esophagogastric Junction.

BACKGROUND

The impact of marital status on the prognosis of patients with Siewert type II adenocarcinoma of the esophagogatric junction (AEG) remained unclear. This study aimed to investigate the associations of marital status with cancer-specific death risk and cardiovascular death risk in Siewert type II AEG patients.

METHODS

Data for Siewert type II AEG patients were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database from 2010 to 2015. A 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to reduce inter-group bias between the married and unmarried groups. Kaplan-Meier analysis, a competing risk model and the Fine-Gray multivariable regression model were used to identify the prognostic value of marital status.

RESULTS

In total, 1,623 subjects were included. After PSM, according to Fine-Gray multivariable regression analysis, there was no significant difference in the cumulative cancer-specific death rate between the married and the unmarried groups (hazard ratio (HR): 1.160, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.994 - 1.354, P = 0.060). Patients in unmarried group had a higher cardiovascular death rate than patients in married group (HR: 3.066, 95% CI: 1.372 - 6.850, P = 0.006).

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrates that unmarried Siewert type II AEG patients are associated with higher cardiovascular death risk but not cancer-specific death risk compared with married patients.