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Background: Patients with gastric cancer have an increased nutritional risk and experience a significant skeletal muscle loss after surgery. We aimed to determine whether muscle loss during the first postoperative year and preoperative nutritional status are indicators for predicting prognosis.Methods: From a gastric cancer registry, a total of 958 patients who received curative gastrectomy followed by chemotherapy for stage 2 and 3 gastric cancer and survived longer than 1 year were investigated. Clinical and laboratory data were collected. Skeletal muscle index (SMI) was assessed based on the muscle area at the L3 level on abdominal computed tomography.Results: Preoperative nutritional risk index (NRI) and postoperative decrement of SMI (dSMI) were significantly associated with overall survival (hazards ratio: 0.976 [95% CI: 0.962-0.991] and 1.060 [95% CI: 1.035-1.085], respectively) in a multivariate Cox regression analysis. Recurrence, tumor stage, comorbidity index were also significant prognostic indicators. Kaplan-Meier analyses exhibited that patients with higher NRI had a significantly longer survival than those with lower NRI (5-year overall survival: 75.8% vs. 63.0%, P <  0.001). In addition, a significantly better prognosis was observed in a patient group with less decrease of SMI (5-year overall survival: 75.7% vs. 66.2%, P = 0.009). A logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the performance of preoperative NRI and dSMI in mortality prediction was quite significant (AUC: 0.63, P <  0.001) and the combination of clinical factors enhanced the predictive accuracy to the AUC of 0.90 (P <  0.001). This prognostic relevance of NRI and dSMI was maintained in patients experiencing tumor recurrence and highlighted in those with stage 3 gastric adenocarcinoma.Conclusions: Preoperative NRI is a predictor of overall survival in stage 2 or 3 gastric cancer patients and skeletal muscle loss during the first postoperative year was significantly associated with the prognosis regardless of relapse in stage 3 tumors. These factors could be valuable adjuncts for accurate prediction of prognosis in gastric cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]