Advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI) predicts prognosis of patients with gastric cancer after surgical resection

INTRODUCTION: Advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI) has been implicated in the prognosis of many types of tumors. But few studies elucidate its role in gastric cancer (GC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We consecutively recruited 615 GC patients who underwent radical gastrectomy. Patients were grouped according to ALI status. Risk factors for overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in overall and sex-stratified cohorts were determined using multivariate cox regression analysis. We also compared survival differences between the two groups after one-to-one propensity score matching (PSM). RESULTS: Patients with low ALI showed larger tumor size, more advanced TNM staging, shorter OS (median: 37 vs 42 months) and DFS (median: 37 vs 42 months) (all P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that elevated ALI was independently associated with longer OS and DFS. After stratification by sex, low ALI was an independent risk factor for OS and DFS in male patients but not in female patients. But our further PSM analysis showed prognostic value of ALI in both male and female subgroups. CONCLUSION: Preoperative ALI is an independent prognostic factor for GC patients undergoing curative gastrectomy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-022-09774-z.