Patients with old age or proximal tumors benefit from metabolic syndrome in early stage gastric cancer

Background Metabolic syndrome and/or its components have been demonstrated to be risk factors for several cancers. They are also found to influence survival in breast, colon and prostate cancer, but the prognostic value of metabolic syndrome in gastric cancer has not been investigated. Methods Clinical data and pre-treatment information of metabolic syndrome of 587 patients diagnosed with early stage gastric cancer were retrospectively collected. The associations of metabolic syndrome and/or its components with clinical characteristics and overall survival in early stage gastric cancer were analyzed. Results Metabolic syndrome was identified to be associated with a higher tumor cell differentiation (P = 0.036). Metabolic syndrome was also demonstrated to be a significant and independent predictor for better survival in patients aged >50 years old (P = 0.009 in multivariate analysis) or patients with proximal gastric cancer (P = 0.047 in multivariate analysis). No association was found between single metabolic syndrome component and overall survival in early stage gastric cancer. In addition, patients with hypertension might have a trend of better survival through a good control of blood pressure (P = 0.052 in univariate analysis). Conclusions Metabolic syndrome was associated with a better tumor cell differentiation in patients with early stage gastric cancer. Moreover, metabolic syndrome was a significant and independent predictor for better survival in patients with old age or proximal tumors.