Deng ZJ, Nie RC, Lu J, et al. - A poor prognosis is experienced by stage II gastric cancer patients with adverse prognostic factors (age ≥ 60, linitis plastica and T4). For these patients, a more beneficial treatment choice could be adjuvant chemotherapy.

• This is a retrospective analysis of 1,121 stage II gastric cancer patients who received D2 radical gastrectomy from 2007 to 2017.

• By applying propensity score matching, baseline data were balanced between the adjuvant chemotherapy group and surgery-only group.

• Univariate analysis, after propensity score matching, revealed that age, tumor location, tumor size, carcinoembryonic antigen, T stage and N stage were related to overall survival (OS).

• In multivariate analysis, independent risk factors for OS included age ≥ 60 years old, linitis plastica and T4, but lower location and adjuvant chemotherapy were identified as protective factors.