Five-year Survival Rate in Gastric Cancer Patients and its Related Factors in West Azerbijan Province, Iran During the Period 2011-2013

Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer and the third cause of cancer death globally. This cancer ranks first and fourth in Iranian men and women, respectively. Assessment of survival rate and factors influencing it will make it possible to determine the burden of disease in the population and the relationships between different factors and the survival rate. The present study was performed to estimate the survival rate and determine its prognostic factors in patients with gastric cancer in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. In this study 930 cases of gastric cancer were investigated during the period 2011-2012 and the first half of 2013. The Kaplan-Meier method and Log-rank test were used to determine the survival rate and compare survivor functions, respectively; for data fitting A Cox’s proportional hazards model was used. The data were analyzed using the Stata v.11 software The average age of the patients (more than 69% males) was 66.43±12.5 years. The one-, three- and five-year survival rates were 37%, 14% and 11%, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that age (p=0.01) and tumor metastasis (p=0.001) were the most important prognostic factors. While the survival rates in gastric cancer patients in the West Azarbaijan province, Iran were very low, a significantly higher survival rate was observed in younger patients with no tumor metastasis.