Abstract:
Objective To investigate the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with early gastric carcinoma with lymphoid stroma (EGCLS).
Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 27 consecutive patients with EGCLS who underwent radical surgery at The Second People’s Hospital of Changzhou between January 2007 and December 2023. Sixty-nine cases of conventional early gastric carcinoma with matched T stages were randomly selected as controls. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of P53, mismatch repair (MMR) proteins, programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), E-cadherin, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) in the study cohort. FISH analysis was conducted on HER2 2+ cases, and in situ hybridization was used to detect Epstein-Barr virus (EBV).
Results No significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of patient sex, age, tumor location, size, ulceration, lymphovascular or perineural invasion, tumor budding grade, P53 expression, or MMR protein deficiency. The EGCLS group showed significantly higher proportions of SM2 invasion (88.9%), poor tumor differentiation (70.4%), pushing tumor border (48.1%), PD-L1 positivity (59.3%), Epstein–Barr virus-encoded small RNA (EBER) positivity (55.6%), and abnormal E-cadherin expression (48.1%) compared to the control group (59.4%, 46.4%, 18.8%, 24.6%, 1.4%, and 23.2%, respectively; P<0.05). The frequency of lymph node metastasis (7.4%) and the proportion of elevated macroscopic type (14.8%) in the EGCLS group were significantly lower than in the control group (30.4% and 40.6%, respectively; P<0.05). Lymphovascular invasion, tumor budding grade, and non-EGCLS status were identified as risk factors for lymph node metastasis, with lymphovascular invasion being the only independent risk factor.
Conclusions EGCLS is a rare subtype of early gastric carcinoma characterized by a low frequency of lymph node metastasis and a high proportion of EBER positivity or MMR protein deficiency. Endoscopic resection or immunotherapy may be preferred treatment options for patients who are not suitable candidates for surgery.