Table 1 Clinicopathological characteristics of the training and validation cohort for patients with stage II/III gastric cancer (n = 1070)

Gender (males)

501 (66.9%)

206 (64.2%)

0.390

Age (years)

55.73 ± 10.05

56.03 ± 10.73

0.661

Body Mass Index (kg/m²)

21.98 ± 2.90

21.60 ± 2.82

0.046

Any comorbidities

217 (29.0%)

99 (30.8%)

0.539

Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy

68 (9.1%)

34 (10.6%)

0.440

Pre-operative albumin concentration (g/L)

38.73 ± 4.57

38.68 ± 4.98

0.868

Pre-operative lymphocyte count (×10 ⁹/L)

1.77 ± 0.71

1.79 ± 0.74

0.785

Pre-operative hemoglobin (g/L)

117.90 ± 25.00

118.07 ± 25.88

0.922

Operation method

0.699

 Open

561 (74.9%)

244 (76.0%)

 Laparoscopy

188 (25.1%)

77 (24.0%)

Type of resection

0.618

 Distal subtotal gastrectomy

506 (67.6%)

212 (66.0%)

 Proximal subtotal gastrectomy

18 (2.4%)

11 (3.4%)

 Total gastrectomy

225 (30.0%)

98 (30.5%)

T stage*

0.899

 T1

22 (2.9%)

6 (1.9%)

 T2

79 (10.5%)

31 (9.7%)

 T3

100 (13.4%)

39 (12.1%)

 T4

548 (73.2%)

242 (75.4%)

N stage*

0.415

 N0

167 (22.3%)

61 (19.0%)

 N1

141 (18.8%)

68 (21.2%)

 N2

196 (26.2%)

77 (24.0%)

 N3

245 (32.7%)

115 (35.8%)

pTNM stage*

0.086

 II

218 (29.1%)

77 (24.0%)

 III

531 (70.9%)

244 (76.0%)

Intra-operative blood loss (mL)

215.55 ± 145.25

208.03 ± 130.70

0.425

Operation time (min)

200.44 ± 52.78

204.29 ± 52.49

0.278

Peri-operative blood transfusion

0.655

 Yes

156 (20.8%)

63 (19.6%)

 No

593 (79.2%)

258 (80.4%)

Post-operative complications †

0.600

 Yes

73 (9.7%)

28 (8.7%)

 No

676 (90.3%)

293 (91.3%)

Post-operative hospital stays (days)

11.67 ± 5.00

12.09 ± 5.63

0.171

Peri-operative chemotherapy

0.880

 1 cycles

133 (17.8%)

62 (19.3%)

 2 cycles

141 (18.8%)

66 (20.6%)

 3 cycles

148 (19.8%)

63 (19.6%)

 4 cycles

213 (28.4%)

84 (26.2%)

 5 cycles

114 (15.2%)

64 (19.9%)