Prognostic factors for overall survival in stage IV gastric cancer

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aims: To Determine Prognostic factors for overall survival in patients with metastatic gastric cancer (mGC). Methods: A retrospective descriptive study on patients with stage IV gastric cancer in the Oncology Center of Hue central hospital, Viet Nam, from 2015 to 2020. Before initiating treatment, demographic, clinical, and laboratory features as well as treatment methods were documented. The Kaplan - Meir test was used to estimate overall survival. Prognostic factors of survival were identified using the Cox model. Results: There were a total of 167 patients, with a median age of 58. The majority of patients had BM under 18.5 kg/m2 (64.1%) and KPS above 80 (86.8%) prior to treatment. The most common clinical symptom was epigastric pain (73.7%). 86.2% of patients had serum albumin levels below 35g/L. 64.0% of patients underwent palliative surgery, including 69.2% who had gastrectomy. The chemotherapy rate was 59.9%, with 93.0% multidrug cytotoxic regimens. The median survival was 11 months. By using multivariate analysis, serum albumin (95%CI: 1.055 - 3.190, p = 0.032), palliative surgery (95%CI: 0.407 - 0.873, p = 0.008), and multidrug chemotherapy regimens (95%CI: 0.424 - 0.920, p = 0.017) were independent prognostic factors. Conclusion: Patients with stage IV gastric cancer have poor overall survival at 11 months. Low serum albumin, palliative surgery, and doublet/triplet chemotherapy were four independent prognostic factors.