Geriatric Nutrition Index Influences Survival Outcomes in Gastric Carcinoma Patients Undergoing Radical Surgery

The survival impact of the geriatric nutrition risk index (GNRI) has yet to be investigated in patients undergoing gastric carcinoma (GC) surgery.

In total, 1166 GC patients who underwent radical gastrectomy were retrospectively reviewed. The predictive and discrimination abilities for overall survival (OS) were compared among GNRI, nutrition indices, and systemic inflammatory markers. Patients were dichotomized by GNRI (GNRI <98, low; GNRI ≥98, high), and the impacts of GNRI on OS and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were evaluated using Cox hazards analysis.

GNRI showed superior discrimination and predictive ability for OS as compared with other indices. There were 447 (38.3%) and 719 (61.7%) patients in the low- and high-GNRI groups, respectively. Patients with low GNRI were older and had a higher pStage III disease rate than those with high GNRI (P < .001). OS curves were significantly stratified by GNRI in all patients (P < .001) and those with pStage I (P < .001), II (P < .001), and III (P = .02) disease. Multivariate analysis showed low GNRI to be independently associated with poor OS (hazard ratio [HR], 2.15; 95% CI, 1.612.87; P < .001). Furthermore, low GNRI was an independent predictor of poor CSS (HR, 1.61; 95% CI, 1.072.44; P = .02), as were total gastrectomy (P < .001) and pStage III disease (P < .001). Patients who had low GNRI and underwent total gastrectomy showed quite poor 5-year OS (54.8%).

GNRI is useful for predicting survival and oncological outcomes in GC patients.