Objective: The aim of the present study is to detect the factors affecting the postoperative morbidity of gastric or colorectal resection due to cancer and to evaluate the predictive value of the preoperative Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002) score on postoperative morbidity.

Methods: Patients who underwent gastric and colorectal resection due to malignancy were included in the study. The effects of age, gender, the malignancy origin, preoperative NRS-2002 score, blood transfusion size during operation, stage of the disease, length of the operation, body mass index (BMI), and preoperative blood albumin levels on morbidity were statistically evaluated.

Results: A total of 418 patients between January 2012 and December 2014 were included in the study. Ninety-nine of them (23.6%) showed postoperative morbidity. Postoperative morbidity developed in 50 (19.3%) patients with a good nutritional score. The morbidity rate was 30.8% (n=49) in patients with a poor nutritional score (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The preoperative evaluation of the nutritional status with NRS-2002 in surgery clinics can be used as a method to predict postoperative morbidity in patients who underwent resection due to gastric or colorectal cancer.

Keywords: Colon cancer, gastric cancer, NRS-2002, nutrition