Estimating postoperative survival rate of gastric cancer patients and its effective factors in Babol, northern Iran: 2006-2011.

Background: The importance of gastric cancer, considering its progressive course and high mortality is one of the reasons we pay attention to patients' survival and the significance of this study was to estimate survival and determine the effective factors on patients with gastric cancer.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all patients with gastric cancer who underwent surgery in Shahid Beheshti Hospital, Babol, northern Iran during 2006-2011 were enrolled. To get information, a checklist was prepared consisting gender, age, and other factors related to survival from the start of diagnosis to the end of study. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS Version 20, t-test, chi-square test and Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier.

Results: One hundred seventy-five patients consisting 132(75.4%) males and 43(24.6%) females entered the study. Among the 146 patients who were followed up for 50 months, 25 (14.28%) cases survived and 121 (69.15%) cases died. Survival did not have a significant association with gender, age, family history, smoking, location and type of tumor, metastasis, involved lymph nodes and treatment. Tumor stage and type of surgery had a significant association with survival in Cox regression.

Conclusion: Diagnosis of cancer at the early stage and type of surgery increased survival rate.