title: Impact of gender on cellular immunity following gastrectomy in    gastric cancer patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the impact of sex on white blood cells count after gastrectomy in patients with gastric cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study population included 48 patients who underwent total or subtotal gastrectomy for gastric cancer. Total white blood cells, neutrophils and lymphocytes counts of pre and postoperative day 1, 3, and 5 were reviewed from hospital database from 15 March 2009 to 1 December 2011 retrospectively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This investigation involved 28 male patients (58.33%) and 20 female patients (41.66%). The mean age of male and female patients was 69.4±14.2 and 65.2±15.6 year. There was a significant change in total white blood cells counts in post-operative day 3 (p= 0.041) and post-operative day 5 (p= 0.022) between males and females. Significant change was noted in post-operative day 5 for lymphocytes counts (p= 0.049). Neutrophil values indicated significant alterations in all pre and post gastrectomy days; pre-operative (p= 0.039), post-operative day 1 (p= 0.034), post-operative day 3 (p= 0.012), post-operative day 5 (p= 0.0102).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this comparison between genders, there was a significantly increased proportion of total white blood cells, neutrophils and lymphocytes in female subjects than in male individuals following gastrectomy. Our results revealed that female patients indicated more immune reactions to surgery than male patients. This research provided evidences that gender affects the cellular immunity after surgical stress.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
authors.forename: Nasrin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rahmani
authors.forename: Seyyed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abbas Hashemi
authors.forename: Iman
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sadeghian
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005743:Gastrectomy; D006801:Humans; D007958:Leukocyte Count; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008297:Male; D009504:Neutrophils; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000601:surgery*