Clinical Impact of Platelet-to-albumin Ratio on Esophageal Cancer Patients Who Receive Curative Treatment.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Perioperative nutrition and inflammation affect the oncological outcomes of various malignancies. We evaluated the clinical impact of the preoperative platelet-to-albumin ratio (PAR) in resectable esophageal cancer patients who received curative treatment.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

This study included 168 patients who underwent curative surgery followed by perioperative adjuvant chemotherapy for esophageal cancer between 2005 and 2018. The risk factors for overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were identified.

RESULTS

Based on the 3- and 5-year OS rates, we set the cut-off value for the PAR at 80×10 in the present study. Among 168 patients, 134 (79.8%) were defined as the PAR-low and 34 (20.2%) as the PAR-high group. The 3- and 5-year OS rates were 60.2% and 51.7% in the PAR-low group and 30.2% and 18.9% in the PAR-high group, respectively. There were significant differences in OS (p=0.005). The PAR was therefore selected for the final multivariate analysis model [hazard ratio=1.997, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.230-3.241, p=0.037]. On comparing the perioperative clinical course between the PAR-high and PAR-low groups, there were marginally significant differences in the postoperative surgical complications and intraoperative blood loss between the groups.

CONCLUSION

The PAR had clinical influence on the long-term oncological outcomes of esophageal cancer patients and might thus be a promising prognostic factor for esophageal cancer patients.