ObjectiveTo study the safety and efficacy of endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) for early gastric cardia cancer (EGCC) in elderly patients. MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed on data of 499 EGCC patients who underwent ESD from January 2011 to June 2018 in Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. The patients were divided into two groups by age, the young/middle-aged group (<65 years old) and the elderly group (≥65 years old). The baseline data, lesion features, postoperative complications, short-term efficacy and long-term efficacy of the two groups were compared.ResultsThe elderly group included 272 patients (283 lesions) and the young/middle-aged group included 227 patients (229 lesions). Except that there were significant differences in the age (P<0.001) and body mass index (P=0.002) between the elderly group and the young/middle-aged group, there were no significant differences in the baseline data or pathological features between the two groups. The rate of curative resection in the elderly group was 77.0%, lower than that in the young/middle-aged group (84.3%, P=0.045). No significant differences were found in en bloc resection rate (100.0% VS 99.6%, P=1.000), complete resection rate (94.7% VS 93.9%, P=0.705), postoperative complications incidence (6.4% VS 5.7%, P=0.747), operation time (64.02±39.24 min VS 66.16±44.62 min, P=0.566) or hospitalization time (6.76±2.06 d VS 6.47±1.74 d, P=0.092]. After the median follow-up of 47.9 months, 13.4% patients in the elderly group received additional surgery, which was slightly lower than that in the young/middle-aged group (P=0.891). There were no significant differences in postoperative recurrence, lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, overall mortality and disease-related mortality between the two groups. The survival analysis showed that five-year overall survival rates were 94.41% and 96.34% in the elderly group and the young/middle-aged group respectively (P=0.156), and five-year disease-specific survival rate were 99.18% and 99.03% in the two groups respectively (P=0.858).ConclusionESD is safe and effective for EGCC in elderly patients with satisfactory short-term and long-term efficacy.