Abstract
The goal of this systematic review was to identify all of the research within the last 10 years that investigated both the Albumin–Globulin Ratio (AGR) and outcomes of solid tumor cancer patients via quantitative prognostic variables. Multiple scientific databases were researched for journal articles that included keywords relating AGR to prognosis. Once isolated from the databases, the articles were de-duplicated and manually screened based on standardized inclusion/exclusion criteria in a blind format via Rayyan. The collective data were sorted by cancer type, corrected for population size, and used to calculate the average cut-off values for the most popular prognostic variables. In total, 18 independent types of cancer have been evaluated to see if AGR is a prognostic indicator based on multivariate analyses. The average cut-off value for AGR in overall survival was 1.356, while the average cut-off value for AGR in progression free survival was 1.292. AGR was found to be significantly associated with at least one prognostic variable in every type of cancer evaluated based on multivariate analyses. The ease of access and affordability of AGR makes it an invaluable tool applicable to nearly all patients. Overall, AGR is a proven prognostic variable that should always be considered in the evaluation of a solid tumor cancer patient's prognosis. Further research needs to be conducted studying the potential prognostic effect in more types of solid tumors.
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Abbreviations
- OS:
-
Overall survival
- DFS:
-
Disease-free survival
- DSS:
-
Disease-specific survival
- PFS:
-
Progression-free survival
- ACM:
-
All-cause mortality
- RFS:
-
Recurrence-free survival
- CSS:
-
Cancer-specific survival
- TSS:
-
Tumor-specific survival
- R:
-
Recurrence
- M:
-
Metastasis
- DM:
-
Distant metastasis
- DMFS:
-
Distant metastasis free survival
- TR:
-
Tumor recurrence
- SP:
-
Stage progression
- CSM:
-
Cancer-specific mortality
- ACCRM:
-
All-cause cancer related mortality
- SPOC:
-
Serious postoperative complications
- RLNI:
-
Retroperitoneal lymph node involvement
- CRC:
-
Colorectal cancer
- BUC:
-
Bladder urothelial cancer
- SCLC:
-
Small cell lung cancer
- NSCLC:
-
Non-small cell lung cancer
- UTUC:
-
Upper tract urothelial carcinoma
- RCC:
-
Renal cell carcinoma
- DLBCL:
-
Diffuse large B cell lymphoma
- NKTL:
-
Natural killer T-cell lymphoma
- BC:
-
Bladder cancer
- Recur:
-
Recurrence
- Metas:
-
Metastasis
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A university librarian was utilized to optimize the database search for this systematic review.
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Roberts, W.S., Delladio, W., Price, S. et al. The efficacy of albumin–globulin ratio to predict prognosis in cancer patients. Int J Clin Oncol 28, 1101–1111 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10147-023-02380-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10147-023-02380-4