The Analysis of Surgical Outcomes in Operable Gastric Cancer Patients Presenting With or Without Sarcopenia

We aimed to identify the patients with increased risk of post-operative complications using pre-operative sarcopenia as an indicator of adverse outcome in gastric cancer patients undergoing resection. This study was a prospective observational cohort study including patients with adenocarcinoma of stomach, undergoing gastric resection with curative intent. All the patient underwent pre-operative evaluation of sarcopenia including skeletal muscle index (SMI) measurements and hand grip strength (HGS) analysis. The post-operative parameters assessed were the time to initiate enteral feeding, the time to pass first flatus, post-operative complications, post-operative hospital stay, and histopathological staging of the resected specimen. All these parameters were compared between the sarcopenia and non-sarcopenia arms to obtain the final results. The total number of patients enrolled was 72 (46 male, 26 female). The mean SMI of the study cohort was 47.1 cm²/m² and the mean HGS was 29.35 kg. Thirty-six patients (24 male, 12 female) were sarcopenic pre-operatively. Sixty-two patients underwent subtotal gastrectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy, and 10 patients underwent total gastrectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy. The median time to pass flatus was 4 days, the median time to initiation of enteral feeding was 4 days, and the median post-operative hospital stay was 12 days. Majority of the study patients had a pT3N1-2 disease. Sarcopenia was significantly associated with worsening ECOG performance status (p = 0.001), delay in passage of first flatus post-operatively (p = 0.017), higher post-operative complications (p = 0.012), higher T stage (p = 0.040), and higher N stage (p = 0.001). But there was no significant association between sarcopenia and time to initiation of enteral feeding and post-operative hospital stay. Sarcopenia is an independent prognostic factor for adverse short-term post-operative outcomes in patients undergoing curative intent resection of gastric cancer.