Gastric cancer is one of the most common tumor in our country. The overall survival of 5-year in patients with metastatic gastric cancer was only 3.1% [1] . Many factors were associated with the prognosis in patient with the IV stage gastric cancer. The present retrospective study evaluated baseline patient-or tumor-related prognostic factors in 138 patients with the IV stage gastric cancer, and the outcome could help clinicians and patients in clinical decision-making and treatment tailoring based on the estimated prognosis.
Material and methods
Patient selectionFrom 1st January 2003 to 31st December, all of the stage IV patients with diagnosed metastatic were slected at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. All of them were treated with one or more cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy.
Data collectionWe designed a table in Microsoft Excel to collect the patients' clinical data. The data we gathered included: population data, clinical manifestations, pathological type and Borrmann type, chemotherapy regimens, complete blood cell count and serum biochemistry, computed tomography (CT) scan. Different variables were dichotomized with different cutoff points and assigned a value. The cutoff point of the serum total bilirubin level and serum alkaline phosphatase level were chosen as the upper normal value, while the serum albumin level were chosen as the lower normal value. The number of metastatic sites were determined by the imagic examination or surgical operation and the metastatic sites in the same organ were considered as Table 1.
Follow-up138 patients were enrolled in this study. And we follow-up by telephone, and the last data were 12th March, 2008. Ten of them were lost and were regarded as dead. The rate of follow-up was 93.24%.Abstract Objective: We evaluated the prognostic factors of patients with stage IV gastric cancer. Methods: In the current retrospective study, 138 patients of stage I gastric cancer treated with platinum-based chemotherapy were analyzed. Survival rate was estimated by using Kaplan-Meier method. The prognostic factors were analyzed using univariate (Log rank) and multivariate (Cox model) analysis methods. Results: Univariate analysis showed and multivariate analysis showed that poor performance status (P = 0.001), weight loss (P = 0.001), depth of invasion (P = 0.000), presence of peritoneal metastasis (P = 0.005), more than 1 metastatic site (P = 0.029) and elevated total bilirubin (P = 0.018) were confirmed as independent prognostic factors. According to the outcomes of the Cox model analysis, a formula of the prognostic index was developed. According to the values of PI, 16 patients were categorized as the good risk group, 28 patients were categorized as the moderate risk group and 8 patients were categorized as the poor risk group, respectively. The survival ratios of 6 months, 12 months and 24 months of the good risk group were 75.00%, 50.00%, 25.00%, respectively. The survival ratios of 6 month, 1-year and 2-year of the moderate risk group were 71.79%, 28.57%, 7...