INFLUENCE OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS ON THE SURVIVAL OF PATIENTS UNDERGOING GASTRIC CANCER SURGERY

Preoperative nutritional status is a predictive modifiable factor of survival in gastrointestinal oncology surgery. The aim of the study was to analyze the influence of nutritional risk (NR) on survival in patients undergoing gastric cancer (GC) surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospective study of 50 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma who underwent surgery over a 2-year period. To identify patients with malnutrition, the malnutrition criteria of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) were followed, and the nutritional risk was calculated with The nutritional Risk Screening (NRS2002). Patients were divided into two groups: NR (NRS≥3) and non-NR (NRS≤2), and survival was compared between the two. RESULTS The 5-year survival of GC patients was 22%, with a median survival of 15.8 months [SEM: 4.760, 95% CI = (6.473-25.132)]. NR patients had lower 5-year survivals (14% vs 57%, p = 0.004). Additionally, they had 4.4 times [95% CI = (1.714-11.495)] higher risk of mortality during oncological follow-up than patients without NR. CONCLUSIONS NR patients undergoing GC surgery have lower long-term survival. The preoperative NR can be considered a prognostic factor for survival and it should be evaluated preoperatively in gastrointestinal cancer surgery.