ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the main risk factors associated with intra-abdominal infection(IAI) following gastrectomy in gastric cancer patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Case-control study was used to investigate the clinical data of 1728 gastric carcinoma cases retrospectively by Logistic regressive analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Univariate Logistic regressive analysis showed 16 factors, including age, malnutrition, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD), diabetes mellitus(DM), heart diseases, prothrombin time, lymphocyte count, tumor size, ascites, invasion to the adjacent organ, neoplasm TNM staging (UICC, 1997), methods of gastrectomy, blood loss, operative time, blood transfusion and extent of lymph nodal dissection,were associated with postoperative intra-abdominal infection. Binary Logistic regression analysis found that extent of lymph nodal dissection(N(2)(+) approximately N(3) and N(2)), invasion to the adjacent organ, DM, operative time, age and lymphocyte count were the independent risk factors associated with mortality.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Necessary interventions should be carried out to prevent IAI referring to above risk factors.</p>