TITLE: PREOPERATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT IN ELDERLY GASTRIC CANCER PATIENTS

AUTHORS: Kaneyuki Matsuo, Doctor
AFFILIATION: National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.

PURPOSE: Status of preoperative condition is really related to peri- and postoperative complications. We evaluated preoperative risk factors with using new assessment system including both physical status and psychological one and analyzed the relationship between preoperative risk factor and peri- and postoperative complications.
PATIENTS AND METHOD: In a recent 10-years period, 60 gastric cancer patients over 80 years old have undergone gastric surgery lasting more than 3 hours. Clinical presentation, treatment, treatment, peri- and postoperative complication and survival data were analysed by medical records.
RESULTS: We divided them into two groups, patients with complications and patients without complications. Respiratory and psycological distress are most common problems in elderly patients. In the complication group, both physiological score and psychological score are higher than no complication group. In addition, the patients with lower score in psychological status that means fighting spirits of coping strategies have few peri- and postoperative complication with no relationship to clinical and pathological stage of gastric cancer.
CONCLUSION: This new assessment system for preoperative risk factors is ususeful in elderly gastric cancer patients as a predictive factors of peri- and postoperative respiratory complications. And we revealed that psycological evaluation is more important for over 80 tears old gastric cancer patients as a predictive factor of respiratory and psycological complications.