Effect of Short-Term Preoperative Parenteral Nutrition Support for Gastric Cancer Patients with Sarcopenia: a...

Sarcopenia is well recognized as an unfavorable prognostic marker for gastric cancer (GC) patients. Currently, few nutritional interventions-such as parenteral nutrition-exist for the treatment of patients with sarcopenia. This study aimed to estimate the effectiveness of short-term preoperative parenteral nutrition (PN) in GC patients with sarcopenia.

We collected data on GC patients with sarcopenia who underwent radical gastrectomy at our hospital from 2010 to 2018. A 1:1 ratio propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to establish the PN and control groups. Data were analyzed using the chi-squared, Mann-Whitney U, and Fisher's exact tests.

In total, 428 patients met the inclusion criteria, and the propensity scores identified 166 matched pairs of patients with sarcopenia. The overall incidence of postoperative complications between both groups was not significantly different (P = 0.728). The PN group had a lower rate of intra-abdominal infection (P = 0.032) and higher hospitalization costs (P < 0.001) than the control group. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that age, Charlson score, and TNM stage were independent risk factors for postoperative complications. Additionally, subgroup analysis revealed that short-term preoperative PN support is associated with decreased postoperative surgical complications in patients with albumin levels < 35 g/L (P = 0.025).

Short-term preoperative PN support is not associated with reduction of overall complication rate in patients with GC and sarcopenia. However, those with sarcopenia and hypoalbuminemia benefited from preoperative PN support.