ASO Author Reflections: How Can We Accurately Predict Patients Expected to Be Malnourished After Gastrectomy?

The most effective treatment for gastric cancer (GC) is curative gastrectomy. However, approximately 10–20 % of GC patients with curative gastrectomy experience unintentional weight loss postoperatively.1 Severe weight loss may lead directly to postoperative malnutrition (body mass index [BMI] < 18.5 kg/m²)2 and result in poor prognosis.3 If clinicians are able preoperatively to identify the patients at risk for post-gastrectomy malnutrition, then a more personalized postoperative nutritional management can be provided. Although previous studies have suggested gender, total gastrectomy, preoperative BMI, postoperative complications, and so forth as significant risk factors for postgastrectomy weight loss, malnutrition, or both1,4 studies that develop a predictive nomogram by quantifying and weighting these risk factors are lacking. Therefore, the current study asks the following question: how can clinicians accurately predict patients who are expected to be malnourished after gastrectomy? …