ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Postoperative complications have been shown to worsen prognoses of various cancer types. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 265 patients with stage II-III gastric cancer who underwent curative gastrectomies between 1991 and 2010 at Tottori University Hospital to determine the effect of postoperative intra-abdominal complication (IAC) on prognosis. RESULTS: Of the 265 patients, 38 (14.3%) developed postoperative IACs of grade ≥ 2, of whom significantly more patients were male. Patients in the IAC group were significantly older than patients in the non-complication (NC) group. The NC group had significantly better survival than did the IAC group (P < 0.0001). Within the IAC group, 5-year survival rates did not significantly differ between patients with infectious complication subgroup (24.6%) and the non-infectious subgroup (46.2%). Grade of complication was not related to prognosis. Lengths of time before starting adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) after surgery were significantly longer for the IAC group (55.3 ± 34.7 days) than for the NC group: (26.6 ± 11.9 days; P = 0.0023). Prognosis of patients who took AC within 6 weeks after surgery tended to be better than that of patients who took AC > 6 weeks after surgery (P = 0.071). In multivariate analysis, IAC was an independent predictor of prognosis, as were age, invasion depth, and lymph node metastasis. CONCLUSION: Postoperative IACs were related to poorer survival for patients with stage II-III gastric cancer.
