Objective To investigate the effects of intraoperative intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) treatment on coagulation and fibrinolysis, lower extremity venous blood flow velocity, and deep venous thrombosis (DVT) in patients with gastric cancer (GC) after radical gastrectomy. Methods The patients with GC who underwent radical gastrectomy at Hebei Provincial People’s Hospital from July 2021 to July 2024 were retrospectively enrolled, then the patients were assigned into control group (the patients who did not receive intraoperative IPC) and study group (the patients who received intraoperative IPC), and the propensity score matching (PSM) method was used to conduct 1∶1 matching based on the basic characteristics such as age, gender, body mass index, comorbidities to ensure baseline comparability between the two groups. The incidences of postoperative DVT and lower extremity swelling, and coagulations [prothrombin time (PT), thrombin time (TT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT)] and fibrinolysis [D-dimer (D-D), fibrinogen (FIB), and fibrin degradation products (FDP)], as well as lower extremity venous blood flow velocity were analyzed after PSM. The locally weighted regression was used to analyze the correlation between the coagulation and fibrinolytic functions indexes and the lower extremity venous blood flow velocity. Results A total of 120 patients were matched (60 cases per group). The baseline characteristics of both groups were comparable (P>0.05). The incidences of DVT on day 7 and lower extremity swelling on day 1, 3, and 7 after surgery in the study group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). The results of repeated-measures analysis of variance showed that there were statistically significant differences in the inter-group, time-related, and group-by-time interaction effects of coagulation and fibrinolysis indexes as well as lower extrimety venous blood flow velocities (P<0.05). The impact of the time factor on coagulation and fibrinolysis indexes and lower extrimety venous blood flow velocities varied with intraoperative IPC intervention measures. After surgery, the PT, TT, APTT, and lower extrimety venous blood flow velocities in the study group first decreased and then increased as compared with those before surgery, and the decrease degree was smaller and the increase degree was larger than those in the control group. After surgery, the D-D, FIB, and FDP in the study group first increased and then decreased as compared with those before surgery, and the increase degree was smaller and the decrease degree was larger than those in the control group. Both PT and TT were significantly positively correlated with femoral vein blood flow velocity (r=0.21, P=0.042; r=0.22, P=0.040), and both also showed significant positive correlations with popliteal vein blood flow velocity (r=0.25, P＜0.001; r=0.20, P=0.032). APTT was only significantly positively correlated with popliteal vein blood flow velocity (r=0.33, P＜0.001). D-D was negatively correlated with the flow velocities of the femoral vein, external iliac vein, and popliteal vein (r=–0.23, P=0.012; r=–0.22, P=0.047; r=–0.37, P<0.001). Both FIB and FDP were negatively correlated with the flow velocity of the femoral vein (r=–0.23, P=0.036; r=–0.27, P=0.002). FIB was also negatively correlated with the flow velocity of the popliteal vein (r=–0.26, P=0.038), and FDP was negatively correlated with the flow velocity of the external iliac vein (r=–0.31, P<0.001).Conclusion Based on the results of this study, intraoperative IPC treatment could improve coagulation and fibrinolytic functions of patients with GC, and has a certain preventive effect on occurrence DVT of lower extremity.

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