Combination of albumin concentration and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio for predicting overall survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND

Lung cancer contributes significantly to the total of cancer-linked deaths globally, accounting for 1.3 million deaths each year. Preoperative albumin (Alb) concentration and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) may reflect chronic inflammation and be used to predict lung cancer outcomes.

METHODS

The clinical records of 293 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in Fujian Medical University Cancer Hospital & Fujian Cancer Hospital were reviewed retrospectively in this current study. Clinicopathologic pretreatment, including NLR, Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), and post-treatment value, such as tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) were documented. The cut-off finder application was employed to calculate the optimal threshold values. The significance of Alb concentration combined with NLR (COA-NLR) on the prediction of overall survival (OS) was explored using Kaplan-Meier analysis along with Cox proportional hazards.

RESULTS

The results revealed that COA-NLR could independently assess the OS of patients with NSCLC [hazard ratio (HR) =1.952, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.367 to 2.647, P<0.001]. Moreover, the 3-year OS rates were 87.2%, 68.5%, and 52.8% for the COA-NLR =0, COA-NLR =1, and COA-NLR =2, respectively (P<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Preoperative COA-NLR value can effectively stratifies prognosis in NSCLC patients by classified patients into three independent groups. It can be adopted as an effective biomarker for prognosis in NSCLC patients treated with resection.