The value of flow cytometric analysis in patients with gastric cancer.

Tumors in the gastric cardia and the body/antrum were studied to determine the effect of ploidy and S-phase fractions on patient survival. Forty-two percent of tumors were located in the cardia and 58% in the body/antrum. Nodal metastases occurred more often with cardia tumors than with body/antrum tumors (86% vs 65%). Aneuploidy occurred more frequently in patients with cardia tumors than in patients with body/antrum tumors (39% vs 20%). Metastasis to lymph nodes was more common in patients with aneuploidy than in patients with diploidy (31% vs 7%). S-phase fractions were not different between aneuploid and diploid tumors. More patients with diploid cancer were alive at 5 years than were patients with aneuploid tumors (90% vs 10%). We conclude that primary cellular differences in gastric tumors of the cardia or body/antrum determine patient survival.