Aim : We investigated whether preoperative or postoperative inflammatory markers and psoas muscle index (PMI), and their change after surgery, could predict postoperative recurrence in gastric cancer (GC). Methods : Thirty-five patients who underwent curative gastrectomy for pStage II and III GC were retrospectively reviewed. The relationship between neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), prognostic nutritional index (PNI), Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), and PMI, as well as postoperative recurrence, was analyzed presurgery and at 6 months after surgery. Results : In the preoperative data, there was a significant association between postoperative recurrence and high NLR, low total protein, low albumin, low PNI, and high GPS. In the data from 6 months after surgery, there was a significant association between postoperative recurrence and high NLR, high C-reactive protein, and high GPS. The reduction in PMI at 6 months after surgery relative to preoperative data was significantly greater in the cases with recurrence than in those without recurrence. No patients whose PMI increased compared with presurgery had recurrence. Conclusions : The postoperative reduction in PMI at 6 months after surgery relative to presurgery could be a predictive marker of recurrence after curative gastrectomy for patients with pStage II and III GC. J. Med. Invest. 68 : 119-124, February, 2021.
Keywords: Gastric cancer; Psoas muscle index (PMI); Recurrence; Sarcopenia; Systemic inflammatory markers.