Effects of age on survival and morbidity in gastric cancer patients undergoing gastrectomy.

Aim: To evaluate clinicopathological features and surgical outcomes of gastric cancer in elderly and non-elderly patients after inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) method using propensity score.

Methods: We enrolled a total of 448 patients with histologically confirmed primary gastric carcinoma who received gastrectomies. Of these, 115 patients were aged > 80 years old (Group A), and 333 patients were aged < 79 years old (Group B). We compared the surgical outcomes and survival of the two groups after IPTW.

Results: Postoperative complications, especially respiratory complications and hospital deaths, were significantly more common in Group A than in Group B ( < 0.05). Overall survival (OS) was significantly lower in Group A patients than in Group B patients. Among the subset of patients who had pathological Stage I disease, OS was significantly lower in Group A ( < 0.05) than Group B, whereas cause-specific survival was almost equal in the two groups. In multivariate analysis, pathological stage, histology, and extent of lymph node dissection were independent prognostic values for OS.

Conclusion: When the gastrectomy was performed in gastric cancer patients, we should recognized high mortality and comorbidities in that of elderly. More extensive lymph node dissection might improve prognoses of elderly gastric cancer patients.