Estimating Survival Rates in Gastric Cancer Based on Pathologic and Demographic Factors in Fars Cancer Registry (2001-2005)

Gastric cancer remains as one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In patients with gastric cancer, the survival rate after diagnosis is relatively low. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of demographic factors in estimation of survival rate in patients with gastric cancer in order to develop updated documents in these patients. All gastric cancer patients registered in Fars cancer registry from 2001-2006 were entered in the study. Vital status of the patients was asked by telephone contact. Survival rates were estimated using Kaplan-Meier method and compared by Log-rank test. All calculations were performed using STATA (v.8) software. The p value<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Four hundred forty two gastric cancer patients were registered in this period. Mean and median of survival time was 26.5 ±2.3 and 12.60 months, respectively. A statistically significant difference was seen in survival rates between age groups and type of first treatment. Also, no significant variation was observed in estimation of survival function between other factors (P>0.05). Our results showed that the survival rates of gastric cancer patients in our study were relatively low. Late diagnosis and delayed therapy are important reasons for low survival in these patients. Therefore, improving public education about primary symptoms of gastric cancer by media is recommended.