Preoperative High Visceral Fat Increases Severe Complications but Improves Long-Term Prognosis after Gastrectomy for Patients with Advanced Gastric Cancer: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis

This study investigated the paradox of high visceral fat mass increasing severe complications but improving long-term prognosis after radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer. This was a retrospective cohort study of consecutive patients with primary stage I–III gastric cancer who underwent gastrectomy between April 2008 and June 2018. The visceral adipose tissue index (VAI) was calculated by dividing the visceral fat mass preoperatively measured on computed tomography by the square of the height. Patients with VAIs below the median cut-off value were classified as low-VAI, while those above it were classified as high-VAI. We compared the postoperative complication rate and overall survival (OS) in the low- and high-VAI groups after adjusting patient characteristics using propensity score matching (PSM). There were 155 patients in both groups after PSM. After matching, there was no significant difference in factors other than BMI and VAI that were not adjusted. The high-VAI group had more severe postoperative complications (p = 0.018), but the OS was significantly better in the high-VAI group (hazard ratio 0.611, 95%CI 0.403–0.928, p = 0.021). Preoperative high visceral fat mass not only increased severe complications, but also improved OS after gastrectomy in patients with advanced gastric cancer.