Predicting Postoperative Events in Patients With Gastric Cancer: A Comparison of Five Nutrition Assessment Tools.

BACKGROUND/AIM We compared the adequacy of five nutrition assessment tools with respect to their predictive value in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer (GC) receiving radical surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS Five nutrition assessment tools-Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), malnutritional universal screening tool (MUST), nutritional risk screening, patient generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA), and prognostic nutritional index (PNI)-were assessed preoperatively for stage III GC patients. The correlation between postoperative events and nutritional status was further analyzed. RESULTS Most of the nutritional tools accurately predicted length of hospital stay and grade 3 or higher surgical complications, while only the GPS correlated with 30-day readmission and surgical complications. The PG-SGA performed the poorest among the five tools and failed to predict any postoperative event. CONCLUSION The application of GPS is recommended as a prognostic index for patients with locally advanced GC prior to radical surgery.