Impact of body composition on clinical outcomes in people with gastric cancer undergoing radical gastrectomy after neoadjuvant treatment.

OBJECTIVES: The influence of body composition on clinical outcomes in individuals with gastric cancer (GC) undergoing radical gastrectomy after neoadjuvant treatment (NT) remains unclear. The purpose of this retrospective study was to investigate the association between body composition before NT or after NT and clinical outcomes in individuals with GC receiving multimodal treatments. METHODS: This retrospective study included individuals with GC who received NT followed by radical gastrectomy between January 2016 and December 2018. Skeletal muscle, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) were measured by cross-sectional areas at the level of third lumbar vertebra based on single-slice computed tomography scan prior to NT and prior to the surgical operation. Sarcopenia, high VAT, and high SAT were defined using cutoff points of skeletal muscle index, visceral fat area, and subcutaneous fat area. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate risk factors of NT-related adverse events, postoperative complications and predictors of long-term survival. RESULTS: A total of 110 individuals with GC were enrolled in this study. Sarcopenia was present in 62.7% of them before NT and in 56.4% after NT. Sarcopenia before NT was associated with more NT-related adverse events (odds ratio, 2.901; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.205-6.983; P = 0.018). High VAT after NT (≥106 cm2) was associated with an increasing incidence of postoperative complications (odds ratio, 4.261; 95% CI, 1.332-13.632; P = 0.015). No body-composition parameter was relevant to tumor pathologic response to NT. As for long-term survival, poor overall survival was associated with both low VAT before NT (<120 cm2; hazard ratio [HR], 2.542; 95% CI, 1.111-5.817; P = 0.027) and low SAT after NT (<99.5 cm2; HR, 2.743; 95% CI, 1.248-6.027; P = 0.012). Similarly, shorter disease-free survival was associated with low VAT before NT (<120 cm2; HR, 2.502; 95% CI, 1.222-5.124; P = 0.012) and low VAT after NT (<106 cm2; HR, 2.505; 95% CI, 1.172-5.358; P = 0.018). CONCLUSIONS: Body composition measured by computed tomography could predict NT-related adverse events, postoperative complications, and long-term survival in multimodal treatments for GC. More meaningfully, adipose-tissue status has significant prognostic value for individuals with advanced GC.