Malignant soft-tissue sarcoma resection is associated with a relatively high incidence of surgical site infection (SSI). The known risk factors for SSI following soft-tissue sarcoma resection include tumor size and location, prolonged surgery, and massive blood loss. The geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) was used as a tool to help predict the occurrence of SSI after major surgery. We investigated the utility of the GNRI as a predictor of SSI following soft-tissue sarcoma resection. We retrospectively reviewed 152 patients who underwent surgical resection of soft-tissue sarcoma in our institute, and found that the incidence of SSI was 18.4% (28/152). The SSI and non-SSI groups significantly differed regarding surgical time, diameter of the skin incision, maximum tumor diameter, instrumentation, presence of an open wound, preoperative chemotherapy, preoperative C-reactive protein concentration, and GNRI. Binomial logistic regression analysis showed that the risk factors for SSI following soft-tissue sarcoma surgery were male sex, larger skin incision diameter, larger maximum tumor diameter, presence of an open wound, and lower GNRI. Our findings indicate that malnutrition is a risk factor for SSI after soft-tissue sarcoma resection, and suggest that appropriate assessment and intervention for malnutrition may reduce the incidence of SSI.
Keywords: geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI); malnutrition; soft-tissue sarcoma; surgical site infection (SSI).