Weekday of gastrectomy and long-term survival in gastric adenocarcinoma

Cancer surgery conducted late during the working week might decrease long-term survival for some tumours. Studies on how weekday of gastrectomy influences long-term survival following gastric cancer are few and show conflicting results, which prompted the present investigation.

This population-based cohort study included almost all patients who underwent gastrectomy for gastric adenocarcinoma in Sweden between 2006 and 2015, with follow-up throughout 2020. Associations between weekday of gastrectomy and 5-year all-cause mortality (main outcome) and 5-year disease-specific mortality (secondary outcome) were analysed using multivariable Cox regression. The hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were adjusted for age, sex, education, comorbidity, pathological tumour stage, tumour sub-location, neoadjuvant therapy, annual surgeon volume of gastrectomy, and calendar year.

Among 1678 patients, surgery on Thursday-Friday was not associated with any statistically significantly increased risk of 5-year all-cause mortality (HR 1.05, 95% CI 0.91-1.22) or 5-year disease-specific mortality (HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.89-1.23) compared to Monday-Wednesday. No associations were found when each weekday was analysed separately, with point estimates close to 1.00 (range 0.98-1.00) Monday-Thursday, but increased for Friday (HR 1.22, 95% CI 0.89-1.68) when fewer patients underwent surgery (4% of all). Stratified analyses by age, comorbidity, tumour stage, neoadjuvant therapy, surgeon volume, and tumour sub-location did not reveal any associations between weekday of surgery on Thursday-Friday compared with Monday-Wednesday and risk of 5-year all-cause mortality.

Weekday of gastrectomy might not influence the 5-year survival in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma.