Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Quality assurance is crucial for oncological surgical treatment assessment. For rare diseases, single-quality indicators are not enough. We aim to develop a comprehensive and reproducible measurement, called the "Textbook Outcome" (TO), to assess the quality of surgical treatment and prognosis of gastric neuroendocrine carcinoma (G-NEC) patients. METHODS: Data from patients with primary diagnosed G-NEC included in 24 high-volume Chinese hospitals from October 2005 to September 2018 were analyzed. TO included receiving a curative resection, ≥15 lymph nodes examined, no severe postoperative complications, hospital stay ≤21 d, and no hospital readmission ≤30 d after discharge. Hospital variation in TO was analyzed using a case mix-adjusted funnel plot. Prognostic factors of survival and risk factors for non-Textbook Outcome (non-TO) were analyzed using Cox and logistic models, respectively. RESULTS: TO was achieved in 56.6% of 860 G-NEC patients. TO patients had better overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and recurrence-free survival (RFS) than non-TO patients (P<0.05). Moreover, TO patients accounted for 60.3% of patients without recurrence. Multivariate Cox analysis revealed non-TO as an independent risk factor for OS, DFS, and RFS of G-NEC patients (P<0.05). Increasing TO rates were associated with improved OS for G-NEC patients, but not hospital volume. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that non-lower tumors, open surgery, and >200 mL blood loss were independent risk factors for non-TO patients (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: TO is strongly associated with multicenter surgical quality and prognosis for G-NEC patients. Factors predicting non-TO are identified, which may help guide strategies to optimize G-NEC outcomes.