Rhesus D-phenotype does not provide prognostic information additional to TNM staging in gastric cancer patients

Recently, the Rhesus D-negative phenotype was identified in multivariate an alysis as an important independent risk factor in gastric cancer patients w ho underwent curative resection. The distribution of Rhesus (Rh) D phenotyp e was investigated in a group of 268 patients who underwent gastrectomy for gastric cancer from June 1988 to April 1999. After excluding patients with short, potentially guaranteed follow-up or who deceased in the postoperati ve period, the prognostic significance of Rh D phenotype was evaluated in a subgroup of 239 patients by Cox regression model controlling for gender, a ge, site, histology, depth of tumor invasion (T), node metastasis (N), and type of resection (R). Two hundred and thirty-six patients (88.1%) presente d an Rh+ phenotype and 32 (11.9%) presented an Rh- phenotype. A significant association was found between Rh D-phenotype and the presence of residual tumor after surgery (P = .01). The cumulative 5-year survival rats (95% con fidence interval) was 37.3% (18.1-56.6) in patients with Rh- phenotype and 47.0% (39.2-54.4) in patients with Rh+ phenotype. The Rh D phenotype did no t affect survival independently either in univariate analysis (P = .27) or in multivariate analysis (P = .55). The relative risk of death in D-negativ e versus D-positive patients decreased from 1.36 (95% confidence interval, 0.80-2.30) in univariate analysis to 0.84 (0.47-1.49) in multivariate analy sis after controlling for depth of tumor invasion, lymph node metastases, a nd type of resection. Our study did not confirm the prognostic significance of Rh D phenotype in gastric cancer patients.