Influence of perioperative blood transfusions on long-term survival following surgery for early gastric cancer

We evaluated the influence of perioperative allogeneic blood transfusion on the long-term prognosis in 182 patients who underwent curative gastrectomy for stage 1A gastric cancer. A multivariate analysis using Cox's proportional hazard model revealed that the factors such as age, blood transfusion and histologic types were significantly related to prognosis of the patients. In the analysis limited to the elderly group, blood transfusion had a strongest influence on survival (relative risk 9.07; 95% CI 1.09-79.17), while its influence was not statistically significant in the younger group. These results suggest that perioperative allogeneic blood transfusion may cause poorly prognosis in the gastrectomized patients with early gastric cancer, especially in elderly patients.