Postoperative Survival in Gastric Ca cer atients an i s Associated Factors: A Time De ende t Covariates Model

The gastric cancer in iran is the fourth in the general population. this study was d signed to determine the five-year survivalrate of gastric cancer patients, and to assess its associated factors. we analyzed the data using a time-dependent covariatemodel, and recommend it for analyses of similar data. 281 gastric cancer patients with adenocarcinomatous pathologywho had been operated on at the iran ancer institute between 1995 and 1999 were enrolled in this study. the patients 'survival after surgery was determined, and its relationship with other variables were assessed. kaplan-meier, cox andbreslow method were used, and an alpha level of 0.05 was cons idered significan t. the five-year survival rate and the medianlife expectancy were 22.6% and 19.00 months, respectively . the cox model showed that age, lymph node metastasis,recurrence, and disease stage influenced the chances of survival. it was also shown that lymph node meta tasis and diseasestage correlated ith time of relapse, while age, distant metastasis and disease tage affected surviva l after relapse, and agecorrelated with survival of patients without recurrence . gastric cancer patient in iran have a low five-year survival rate.one of the most important reasons seems to be delayed consultation and diagnosis.