Overweight Patients Achieve Ideal Body Weight Following Curative Gastrectomy Resulting in Better Long-term Prognosis

Background: The relationship between body mass index (BMI) and long-term outcome in gastric cancer patients following radical gastrectomy continues to be debated. We investigated the association between BMI, clinicopathological features, and prognosis in Chinese gastric carcinoma patients.

Methods: A retrospective consecutive cohort study was performed on 1,296 patients who underwent gastrectomy with curative intent at the Tianjin Cancer Institute Hospital between 1999 and 2004. The clinicopathological characteristics, overall 5-year survival rate (OS), and preoperative and six-month postoperative BMIs of both overweight (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m(2); H-BMI; n = 364) and non-overweight (BMI <25 kg/m(2); N-BMI; n = 932) patients were compared.

Results: Among these patients, 364 (28.1 %) were overweight. The OS was significantly higher in the H-BMI than N-BMI group (33.2 vs. 24.1 %, respectively; p < 0.001). Preoperative and six-month postoperative BMIs were 27.1 ± 2.0 and 24.8 ± 2.0 kg/m(2), respectively, in the H-BMI group (p < 0.001), whereas they were 21.7 ± 2.2 and 20.7 ± 2.2 kg/m(2), respectively, in the N-BMI group (p = 0.007). There was significantly better differentiation (p = 0.034), less distant metastases (p = 0.006), and a lower metastatic lymph node ratio (p = 0.014) observed in the H-BMI groups. Multivariate analyses indicated age, BMI, pathological tumor depth, distant metastases, metastatic lymph node ratio, and tumor size as independent prognostic factors.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that overweight patients were less likely to have tumors with aggressive features and can achieve ideal body weight following curative gastrectomy, possibly resulting in better long-term prognosis.