The relationship between sarcopenia and prognoses of patients with gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms (g-NENs) is unclear. This study was designed to explore the effects of sarcopenia on short-term and long-term outcomes of patients with g-NENs after radical gastrectomy.
This study retrospectively collected data of 138 patients with g-NENs after radical gastrectomy. The skeletal muscle index (SMI) diagnostic threshold for sarcopenia was determined using X-tile software. Cox regression were used to determine the independent risk factors for 3-year overall survival (OS) and 3-year recurrence-free survival (RFS).
In this study, there were 59 patients (42.8%) with sarcopenia. Among the sarcopenia group and nonsarcopenia group, the incidences of total postoperative complications were 33.9% and 30.4%, of serious postoperative complications 0% and 3.7%, of postoperative surgical complications 13.6% and 15.2%, of postoperative systemic complications 20.3% and 15.2% (all p>0.05). The 3-year OS and RFS rates were significantly worse in the sarcopenia group than in the nonsarcopenia group (OS:42.37% vs 65.82%, p=0.004; RFS:52.54% vs 68.35%, p=0.036). Multivariate analysis showed that sarcopenia was related to long-term prognoses of g-NENs patients. A stratified analysis based on pathological type revealed that the Kaplan-Meier curve was only significantly different in patients with gastric mixed adenoneuroendocrine carcinoma (gMANEC) (OS: 40.00% vs 71.79%, p=0.007; RFS: 51.43% vs 74.36%, p=0.026); furthermore, multivariate analysis showed that sarcopenia was an independent risk factor for gMANEC patients (p<0.05).
Sarcopenia is not related to short-term prognoses of g-NENs patients. Sarcopenia is an independent risk factor for patients with gMANEC after radical surgery.
The authors.
Scientific and Technological Innovation Joint Capital Projects of Fujian Province.
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.