Risk Factors of Postoperative Complication and Prognostic Factors in Aged Patients with Resectable Gastric Cancer by Using Multivariate Analyses

Abstract

In order to identify risk factors of postoperative complications and prognostic factors in aged (75 years and older) resectable gastric cancer patients, the cases of 78 aged patients who underwent gastrectomy from 1986 to 1997 were analyzed by multivariate analyses. Volume of intraoperative bleeding (X₁) and preoperative number of red blood cells (X₂) were identified as significant risk factors for postoperative complications by logistic regression analysis. The discriminant function was as follows: Z=0.0011X₁-0.0027X₂+0.3342. Therefore, these findings indicate that it is possible to prevent postoperative complications by controlling intraoperative bleeding. Curability was identified as the most important prognostic factor in aged gastric cancer patients by Cox's proportional hazard model. These results suggest that operations aimed at curability A including D2 lymph node dissections can be done for aged patients who have favorable preoperative general conditions, although effort to minimize intraoperative bleeding is required.