Objective: To explore the major risk factors for pulmonary infection after radical gastrectomy in patients with gastric cancer.
Methods: From November 2010 to February 2014, a total of 765 patients undergoing radical gastrectomy at our hospital were divided into 2 groups based upon the presence of postoperative pulmonary infection (n = 32, 4.2%) or not (n = 733, 95.8%). Their clinicopathological data were retrospectively analyzed by Logistic regressive analysis with a case-control study model.
Results: Comparing with the control group, the patients had longer surgical duration (245.7 ± 66.7 vs 210.9 ± 47.2 min, P < 0.01), higher rates of requiring intensive care (12.50% vs 2.86%, P = 0.02) and longer post-operative hospital stays (21.9 ± 24.9 vs 14.2 ± 4.2 days, P < 0.01) in the postoperative pulmonary infection group.Univariate Logistic regressive analysis found that age ≥ 60 years, smoking ≥ 400 year by cigarette, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, proximal or total gastrectomy, combined organ resection, surgical duration ≥ 240 min, intra-operative blood loss ≥ 300 ml, peri-operative transfusion, transfusion ≥ 3 unit packed red blood cell, post-operative transfusion and post-operative complications other than pulmonary infections were associated with postoperative pulmonary infection (all P < 0.05).Further multivariate analysis identified 4 independent risk factors for pulmonary infection after radical gastrectomy, including diabetes mellitus (OR = 4.77, 95%CI:1.18-19.23), post-operative complications other than pulmonary infections (OR = 3.15, 95%CI:1.25-7.90), intra-operative blood loss ≥ 300 ml (OR = 2.63, 95%CI:1.17-5.90) and post-operative nasogastric tube ≥ 5 days (OR = 2.30, 95%CI:1.02-5.21).
Conclusion: Correcting the modifiable risk factors may reduce the incidence of pulmonary infection and shorten the length of hospital stays and costs after radical gastrectomy in patients with gastric cancer.