title: Blood transfusion does not affect survival of gastric cancer patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To initially assess the impact of perioperative blood transfusions (PBTs) on overall survival of patients underwent curative resection of Ⅰ-Ⅲ TNM stage gastric cancer (GC) using the propensity scoring method.
  
  
  METHODS
  The medical records of 1150 GC patients who underwent curative resection in the Tianjin Cancer Hospital between 2003 and 2008 were retrospectively analyzed. Both transfusion and nontransfusion patients were assessed the prognostic differences after surgery using the propensity score analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 299 GC patients (26.0%) were administrated the PBT. With the unadjusted analysis, patients with PBT presented older age, more operative blood loss, lower hemoglobin, lower albumin level, and higher risk of the advanced disease. The 5-y survival rate for patients with PBT was 31.0%, which was significantly lower than that (47.9%) of patients without PBT (P < 0.05). However, we demonstrated that there was not any statistical 5-y survival rate difference of between patients with PBT and patients without PBT with the propensity score analysis (31.0% versus 31.3%, P > 0.05). In addition, we also found that PBT was not significantly associated with the increasing risk of mortality (hazard ratio, 1.054; P = 0.628).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PBT could not give rise to the worse prognoses of GC patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Jingli
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Jingyu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Xuewei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Rupeng
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Weipeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China.
authors.forename: Xishan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Cancer Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, and National Clinical Research Center of Cancer, Tianjin, China. Electronic address: tjlianghan@sohu.com.
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liang
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005743:Gastrectomy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D019990:Perioperative Care / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods; D011379:Prognosis; D057216:Propensity Score; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D016019:Survival Analysis; D065227:Transfusion Reaction
keywords: Blood transfusion; Gastric cancer; Prognosis; Propensity score analysis