Prognostic value of pretreatment Controlling Nutritional Status score in esophageal cancer: a meta-analysis.

The association between the pretreatment Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score and the prognosis of esophageal cancer patients remains unclear. The aim of this meta-analysis was to further elucidate the prognostic role of the pretreatment CONUT score in esophageal cancer based on current evidence. The PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and CNKI databases were searched up to 27 September 2022. The primary and secondary outcomes were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS)/cancer-specific survival (CSS), and the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled for analysis. A total of 11 retrospective studies involving 3,783 participants were included. The pooled results demonstrated that a higher pretreatment CONUT score was significantly related to poor OS (HR = 1.82, 95% CI: 1.31-2.54, < 0.001), and subgroup analysis stratified by pathological type showed similar results. In addition, the pretreatment CONUT score was associated with poor PFS (HR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.10-1.28, < 0.001) and CSS (HR = 2.67, 95% CI: 1.77-4.02, < 0.001). The pretreatment CONUT score was predictive of worse prognosis in esophageal cancer, and patients with a higher CONUT score showed worse survival.