Factors Affecting the Morbidity and Mortality of Gastric Cancer Surgery

Objective: 60-65% of all gastric cancers detected in the Western world are locally advanced at the time of diagnosis. Since curative surgery is a factor affecting survival, extended resections applied to these patients may increase the risk of complications. The aim this study was to determine the post-surgical mortality and morbidity rates in locally advanced gastric cancers.
Methods: One hundred-eighteen patients with non-metastatic, locally advanced gastric cancer who underwent surgery at Ankara Oncology Education and Research Hospital between January 2002 and September 2004 were retrospectively analyzed.
Results: Additional organ resection was performed in 65 (55.08%) patients due to adjacent organ invasion. The morbidity and mortality rates of the total series were 21.7% and 4.5%, respectively. In multivariate analyses, the morbidity-increasing parameter was found to be more than two additional organ resections (p=0.001), while the factors-increasing mortality were two or more additional organ resections (p=0.001), cardiovascular and respiratory comorbidities (p=0.002).
Conclusion: Additional organ resection rates are high in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer who do not receive neo-adjuvant therapy, which increases morbidity and mortality rates.