The prognostic impact of pretreatment anemia in patients with gastric cancer and nonhypoalbuminemia undergoing curative resection: a retrospective study

Background The influence of pretreatment anemia on the prognosis of patients with advanced gastric cancer (GC) remains controversial. We retrospectively examined the impact of pretreatment anemia on the overall survival (OS) of patients with GC with nonhypoalbuminemia undergoing curative resection. Methods The clinicopathological data of 2,916 patients with advanced GC who received a radical gastrectomy from 1994 to 2015 were analyzed. The patients were divided into two subgroups by hemoglobin level, <120 and ≥120 g/L. OS was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify the independent prognostic factor. Results A total of 1,099 patients were included in our study. The median follow-up duration was 43 (IQR, 24-66) months. The prevalence of anemia was 40.9%. Among these 1,099 patients, 505 (46.0%) had nonhypoalbuminemia. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with GC who were anemic had a poorer OS than patients who were not (5-year OS rate: 58.4% vs. 66.8%, P<0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed that pretreatment anemia was an independent prognostic factor [hazard ratio (HR) =1.455, 95% CI, 1.013-2.09; P=0.043]. Conclusions Our findings indicate that pretreatment anemia may serve as an independent prognostic factor for patients with advanced GC with nonhypoalbuminemia after radical gastrectomy, especially those with larger tumor size and pT3 disease.