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The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) predicts overall survival of small-cell lung cancer patients

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Tumor Biology

Abstract

Recent studies have shown the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) had prognostic value in some solid tumors. However, no studies have examined its prognostic role in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients. In this retrospective study, 724 consecutive SCLC patients were included between 2006 and 2013. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were collected. The PNI was calculated as 10 × serum albumin value (g/dl) + 0.005 × peripheral lymphocyte count (per mm3). Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the prognostic value of relevant factors. The optimal cut-off value of PNI for OS stratification was determined to be 52.48. A total of 464 and 260 patients were assigned to low and high PNI groups, respectively. Compared with low PNI, high PNI was associated with older age, advanced stage, and elevated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). Median overall survival (OS) was worse in the low PNI group (low vs high, 15.90 vs 25.27 months; HR, 0.62; p < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, stage, performance status, LDH, and PNI were independent prognostic factors for OS. Subgroup analysis showed PNI was generally a significant prognostic factor in different clinical situations. The assessment of PNI could assist the identification of patients with poor prognosis and be a hierarchical factor in the future SCLC clinical trials.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all the patients who entered this study. This work was supported by the Wu Jieping Medical Foundation Project (Grant No. 08-JC-003), the Innovative drug R&D center based on real-time high-throughput cell-based screening platform and large capacity compound library (Grant No. 2013ZX09401003-002), the National Natural Science Funds of China (Grant No. 81372502), and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2012AA02A502). All the grand supporters have no roles in study design, data collection and analysis, and manuscript preparation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, 651# Dongfeng East Road, Guangzhou, China, 510060

    Shaodong Hong, Ting Zhou, Wenfeng Fang, Cong Xue, Zhihuang Hu, Tao Qin, Yuxiang Ma, Yunpeng Yang, Xue Hou, Yan Huang, Hongyun Zhao, Yuanyuan Zhao & Li Zhang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangzhou, China

    Shaodong Hong, Ting Zhou, Wenfeng Fang, Cong Xue, Zhihuang Hu, Tao Qin, Yuxiang Ma, Yunpeng Yang, Xue Hou, Yan Huang, Hongyun Zhao, Yuanyuan Zhao & Li Zhang

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China

    Shaodong Hong, Ting Zhou, Wenfeng Fang, Cong Xue, Zhihuang Hu, Tao Qin, Yuxiang Ma, Yunpeng Yang, Xue Hou, Yan Huang, Hongyun Zhao, Yuanyuan Zhao & Li Zhang

  4. Department of Oncology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China

    Yanna Tang

  5. Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan, China

    Yue Chen

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  1. Shaodong Hong
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  2. Ting Zhou
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Correspondence to Li Zhang.

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Shaodong Hong, Ting Zhou, and Wenfeng Fang contributed equally to this work and share the first authorship.

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Hong, S., Zhou, T., Fang, W. et al. The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) predicts overall survival of small-cell lung cancer patients. Tumor Biol. 36, 3389–3397 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-014-2973-y

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