The five-year survival of gastric cancer patients with a focus on its prognostic factors

Introduction: Despite extensive advances in the early diagnosis and treatment of gastric cancer, it is still one of the most common causes of death worldwide. In addition to stage and recurrence, the degree of tumor differentiation affects the survival of patients. Objectives: The current study was conducted to investigate the prognostic factors and survival rate of patients with gastric cancer. Patients and Methods: The current prospective study was conducted on patients with gastric cancer from 2010 to 2017 in Imam Khomeini and Apadana hospitals in Ahvaz, Southwest of Iran. For each patient, curative (total or subtotal gastrectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy) or palliative surgery (partial gastrectomy and gastrojejunostomy) were carried out based on clinical indications. Then Cox model was used to analyze factors affecting survival and the Kaplan-Meier test was also utilized to analyze the five-year survival of patients with SPSS version 21. Results: Around 154 patients with gastric cancer, including 101 males (65.6%), with a mean age of 62.21±13.76 years, were studied. The two- and five-year overall survival (OS) of patients were 57.7% and 28.5%, respectively (median OS=28 m). Lower stage, well-differentiated tumors, absence of metastasis, lack of recurrence, receiving adjuvant chemotherapy and curative surgery were significantly associated with greater OS (P