Intra-Abdominal Complications after Curative Gastrectomies Worsen Prognoses of Patients with Stage II–III Gastric Cancer

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.