Background: We retrospectively investigated prognostic factors to be used in selecting the patients with stage IV gastric cancer (GC) who have an unfavorable prognosis after palliative gastrectomy.
Methods: A total of 146 GC patients at stage IV who had undergone palliative gastrectomy were enrolled. Various clinicopathological parameters were evaluated for prognosis.
Results: Surgical morbidity and hospital mortality occurred in 35 (23.9 %) and 4 (2.7 %) patients, respectively. The overall 5-year survival rate and the median survival time were 11.2 % and 13.2 months, respectively. Of the 146 patients, 64 had uncomfortable symptoms associated with GC and 76 had no such symptoms. Of the 64 patients with uncomfortable symptoms, 60 (93.7 %) experienced relief of these symptoms after palliative surgery. Multivariate analysis for patients without uncomfortable symptoms associated with GC revealed that the number of incurable factors and serum SPan-1 level were independent prognostic factors.
Conclusions: Patients with stage IV GC who had multiple incurable factors and a high level of serum SPan-1 might not be candidates for palliative gastrectomy for the purpose of prognostic benefit.