Prognostic factors for survival of patients with advanced gastric cancer treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy

Purpose The present study evaluated baseline patient- or tumor-related prognostic factors in patients with advanced gastric adenocarcinoma. Patients and methods A total of 304 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed metastatic or recurrent gastric cancer treated with one or more cycles of cisplatin-based chemotherapy at the Korea Cancer Center Hospital were enrolled in the current study. Results Among the original 304 patients, only 4 patients were alive at the time of this analysis. The median survival for all patients was 7.3 (95% CI, 6.3–8.2) months. Five independent prognostic factors were identified by a multivariate analysis: poor performance status (hazard ratio [HR], 1.46; 95% CI, 1.32–2.92), elevated total bilirubin (HR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.73–2.35), presence of peritoneal metastasis (HR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.57–1.90), presence of bone metastasis (HR, 3.11; 95% CI, 2.69–3.53), and more than 1 metastatic site (HR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.06–1.38). A prognostic index was constructed that divided the patients into a good (n = 162), moderate (n = 82), or poor (n = 60) risk group. The 1-year survival rates for the good, moderate, and poor risk groups were 34.6, 20.7, and 1.7%, respectively, and the survival differences among the groups were highly significant (P < 0.0001). Conclusion Five prognostic factors were identified from patients receiving first-line cisplatin-based chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer. A simple prognostic index was then developed that produced distinct survival rates among the different risk groups. Therefore, this prognostic model could help clinicians and patients in clinical decision-making and treatment tailoring based on the estimated prognosis.