BACKGROUND Gastric hepatoid adenocarcinoma (HAC) is a special type of gastric cancer that morphologically mimics hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, we performed an evaluation of clinicopathologic characteristics, treatment outcome, and prognosis in patients with gastric HAC.

METHODS We consecutively enrolled patients with pathologically proven gastric HAC at Seoul National University Hospital between January 1996 and December 2008 and conducted a retrospective review. Among 15,253 patients with gastric cancer, 26 patients (0.17%) were diagnosed as gastric HAC.

RESULTS Among 26 patients, 22 were male and the median age was 63. Stage at diagnosis was stage IB in 3 patients, stage II in 6 patients, stage III in 7 patients, and stage IV in 10 patients. Eight patients out of 18 patients with stage IB, II, III, and IV relapsed after curative surgery. Relapse-free survival for these patients was 16.67 months. The most common metastatic site was intraabdominal lymph nodes (n = 9), followed by the liver (n = 8). Thirteen patients received palliative chemotherapy. The most commonly used regimen was a combination of fluoropyrimidine and platinum. Partial response was observed in one patient and stable disease in 5 patients. Median overall survival and progression free survival of these patients were 8.03 (95% CI: 6.59-9.47) and 3.47 months (95% CI: 0.65-6.29), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS Gastric HAC is a very rare but unique type of stomach cancer. Early detection of this type of cancer is of critical importance to patient prognosis. Additional studies to reveal the biology of this tumor are warranted.