Clinical and Histological Indicators of Proximal and Distal Gastric Cancer in Eight Provinces of Iran

Background and Aim: Gastric cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide. In this study the clinicaland histological features of gastric cancer in the cardia and distal stomach were evaluated.
Method: Proximaland distal gastric cancer diagnosed and treated in eight provinces of Iran from 2010-2011 were reviewed in allcollected cases. The age standardized incident rates were calculated and tumor location and histological type wererecorded.
Results: The age-standardized incidence rate for the eight centers was 40.6 per 100,000 populationsper year with an upper and lower range of 22.1 and 102.4 per 100,000 population per year. Thirty four percentof the tumors were located in the cardia, 3% in fundus, and 63% in the distal stomach. In 7 provinces theprevalence of distal tumors was significantly greater than proximal tumors (p=0.006). A significant relationshipwas observed between diffuse form of gastric cancer and distal gastric tumors (p=0.007) and between poor tumordifferentiation and distal gastric tumors (p <0.001).
Conclusions: the result of this study shows that distal gastriccancer is more common than proximal gastric cancer in Iran.