[Surgical treatment of carcinoma of the cardia with special references to mediastinal extension and lymph node metastasis].

We retrospectively analyzed the clinicopathological findings in 141 patients with advanced cardiac cancer. According to histological type, 117 patients had an adenocarcinoma and 24 patients a squamous cell carcinoma. Curative resection was performed in 114 patients, whereas the remaining 27 patients underwent palliative resection. Preoperative endoscopic ultrasonography and abdominal ultrasound were useful for the diagnosis of esophageal invasion and lymph node metastases. Particularly, the classification of paraaortic lymph node metastasis by ultrasound was important in deciding on the surgical method. Mediastinal lymph node metastases were found histologically in 19 of 68 patients. The survival of patients with mediastinal lymph node metastasis was poor. However, among them, a favorable outcome was expected for patients with few involved nodes and if only perigastric node involvement in abdominal nodes was found. Paraaortic lymph node metastasis was found histologically in 15 of 48 patients (27.9%). Two of 35-year survivors had 5 or fewer lymph node metastases, and showed only perigastric and paraaortic node involvement. It is equally important that tumor extension and lymph node metastases in the mediastinum and abdomen should be determined in the surgical treatment of advanced carcinoma of the cardia.