Abstract:   Objective  To study the effect of short course glucocorticoid on postoperative complications and inflammatory cytokines in patients with primary gastric cancer.Methods  A total of 96 patients who underwent laparoscopic partial gectomy for gastric cancer were concluded in this study.The patients were randomly divided into control group and treatment group，the patients of the control group received routine treatment in our department before and after the surgery，the treatment group were further treated with Glucocorticoid（methylprednisolone）intravenously based on the routine treatment，the dose of methylprednisolone were at 1mg/kg weight /d for continual 3 days，followed by half the dose for another 2 days.The chi square test or t test were used as the methods for analysis of the data，including the postoperative complications and the time of hospitalization，the changes of serum levels of interleukin 6（IL6），tumor necrosis factor alpha（TNF a）and hypersensitivity C reaction protein（hsCRP）in 1d，3d and 7d before and after the operation.〖WTHZ〗Results〖WTBZ〗〓Postoperative complications occurred in the two groups，including gastric emptying disorder（12.5% vs 2.1%），intestinal obstruction（14.6% vs 2.1%），anastomotic fistula（8.3% ratio 0）and hospitalization time [（15.52±3.00）d vs（13.27±1.54）d].The serum levels of IL6 [（109.40±14.48）pg/ml vs（81.59±12.61）pg/ml]，〖JP2〗TNF alpha（TNFα）[（52.92 ±11.67）pg/ml vs（39.16±11.67）pg/ml]，hsCRP [（29.56±4.12）mg/ml vs（22.27±4.61）mg/ml] all had statistically〖JP〗 significant at the first day（P<0.05）.The serum levels of IL6 [（93.34±14.19）pg/ml vs（70.19±12.00）pg/ml）]，TNFα [（44.95 ± 1.55）pg/ml vs（29.99±1.29）pg/ml] and hsCRP [（25.58±1.04）mg/ml vs（18.11±0.47）mg/ml] all had statistically significant at the third day（P<0.05）.The serum levels of IL6 [（83.52±13.99）pg/ml vs（55.74±11.80）pg/ml]，TNFα [（34.65±5.44）pg/ml vs（21.85±4.15）pg/ml]，hsCRP[（21.11±3.84）mg/ml vs（14.81±3.38）mg/ml]had statistically significant at the seventh day（P<0.05）.Conclusion  Short course glucocorticoids can reduce the〖JP〗 〖LM〗hospitalization time and complications of patients with primary gastric cancer，and the mechanism may be due to reducing the inflammatory cytokines such as IL6，TNF as well as hsCRP in blood.

Key words: gastric cancer,  ,  , surgical treatment,  ,  , glucocorticoid,  , cytokines