Predictive values of body mass index, prognostic nutritional index and C-reactive protein to prealbumin ratio for prognosis of patients receiving radical gastrectomy

Abstract Introduction: we aimed to analyze the predictive values of body mass index (BMI), prognostic nutritional index (PNI) and C-reactive protein to prealbumin ratio (CRP/PA) for the prognosis of patients receiving radical gastrectomy. Materials and methods: one hundred patients subjected to radical gastrectomy from August 2015 to January 2018 were enrolled. The cut-off values of BMI, PNI and CRP/PA on the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were obtained and applied to establish a low BMI group (n = 46) and a high BMI group (n = 54), a low PNI group (n = 48) and a high PNI group (n = 52), as well as a low CRP/PA group (n = 57) and a high CRP/PA group (n = 43). Results and conclusion: through comparing the low BMI group with the high BMI group, there were differences in the tumor diameter, invasion depth, clinical stage, and lymph node metastasis status (p < 0.05). Differences were found in the invasion depth, tumor diameter, lymph node metastasis status, clinical stage, and postoperative adjuvant therapy in the low CRP/PA group compared with the high CRP/PA group (p < 0.05). The survival rate of all patients was 45 % (45/100) during the 5 years of follow-up. According to the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, the low BMI group, low PNI group and high CRP/PA group had significantly reduced overall survival rates in comparison to those of the high BMI group, high PNI group and low CRP/PA group, respectively (p < 0.05). BMI, PNI and CRP/PA have important predictive values for the prognosis of patients undergoing radical gastrectomy.