365P - The pretreatment albumin has a predictive value for overall survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Background: Cancer associated malnutrition has many consequences including decreased response to treatment, quality of life and survival. Low serum albumin is predictive of poor survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We evaluated the ability of the pretreatment albumin to predict overall survival in patients with NPC. Methods: This retrospective study examined an unselected cohort of 226 patients with NPC who had documented pretreatment serum albumin levels (ALB). Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to evaluate the predictive value of ALB. Results: The cut-off values of pretreatment ALB was 3.50, and was used to divide the NPC patients into high- and low-level groups. ALB < 3.50 was significantly associated with a relatively short overall survival (Median OS ± SE ALB < 3.50 vs ALB ³ 3.50: 9.40 ± 2.56 vs 17.63 ± 1.51 months, P = 0.021). Cox proportional hazard regression analysis showed that ALB was a prognostic factor in NPC (ALB hazard ratio [HR], 95% confidence interval [CI] for overall survival, HR 1.368; 95% CI 1.049 – 1.783). However, multivariate analysis demonstrated that a low pretreatment serum ALB was not an independent predictor of overall survival in NPC patients. Conclusions: The pretreatment ALB may represent a simple, potentially useful predictive biomarker for evaluating the overall survival of patients with undifferentiated NPC. Clinical trial indentification: Ethical Clearance No: KE/FK/260/EC/2016. Legal entity responsible for the study: Dr. Johan Kurnianda, Med. Onc. Funding: None Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.