Chenxi Li, Guanghai Dai, YanShi, Xiaochuan Guo

Oncology Department, General Hospital of PLA

Objective:To investigate the relations ofpreoperative body mass index (BMI) with the change in BMI during perioperativeperiod and disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with gastric cancer. Method:A total of 389 patients who underwent a curative (R0) resection for gastriccancer between 2011 and 2013 were retrospectively studied. According to BMI,all patients were divided into 3 groups; normal group (<25, group 1), anoverweight group (25-30, group 2), and an obesity group (≥30, group 3).Clinical-pathologicalcharacteristics, oncologic outcomes, and disease-free survival were collected,and compared between the 3 groups. Analysis of perioperative BMI variationeffect on DFS, using ROC curve to find the optimal cut-off point. Patients werestratified according to the optimal cut-off point into high BMI change group (BMIvariation ≥1.86, group A) and low BMI change group (BMI variation). DFS werecompared between the 2 groups. Result: Overweight patients have higherproportion of male, but no significant relationships were found between BMI andtumor site, local depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, histological type,pathological grading, and family history of cancer, serum blood proteins, andadjuvant chemotherapy. In this study, the median DFS were 12.5±0.98 months ingroup 1 versus 11.3±1.72 months in group 2 versus 11.3±2.65months in group3.According to BMI groups, the DFS no significant differences were observed.Using the perioperative BMI variation to predict DFS,ROC curve analysis showedthat the sensitivity was 70.4% and specificity was 42%,the area under the curvewas 0.56 (95% CI=0.50~0.62).The cutoff value was 1.86kg/m²,Kaplan-Meiercurves showed that the median DFS in group A was 11.3±0.9 months, and16.9±2.37months in group B, and there was no difference in DFS between the twogroups. Conclusion: According to our data, preoperative BMI andperioperative BMI variation should not be considered a significant predictor ofDFS in gastric cancer patients.

Key Words: Gastric cancer  BMI DFS