Can the preoperative prognostic nutritional index be used as a postoperative predictor of gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma?

Gastric cancer and adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction are major challenges to global public health due to their high morbidity and mortality. Despite continuous improvements in treatment techniques, patient prognosis is still affected by multiple factors. The preoperative prognostic nutritional index (PNI), a simple clinical indicator, has received widespread attention in recent years. Fiflis et al conducted a systematic review and reported that a high PNI was associated with significantly better survival in patients with gastric cancer. They also found that the PNI had prognostic value in patients with cancer of different TNM stages and had a positive effect even in advanced gastric cancer patients. Although the study did not address the impact of treatment regimens and had limited data sources, the results support the validity of the PNI as a biomarker for predicting the survival of gastric cancer patients. Future studies should further standardize the calculation method of the PNI, explore its applicability in different populations, and integrate other clinical parameters to construct more accurate prediction models.