Prognostic value of hypoalbuminemia at diagnosis in de novo non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

The association between serum albumin level and clinical outcomes has been reported for several hematological malignancies. Our study aimed to identify the relationship between serum albumin level at the time of diagnosis and subsequent clinical outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemias (AMLs) other than acute promyelocytic leukemias (APLs). A total of 243 patients with de novo non-M3 AML were enrolled in this study. Variables including gender, age, serum albumin, white blood cell (WBC) count, hemoglobin (Hb), platelet (PLT) count, blasts at peripheral blood (PB) and bone marrow (BM), immunophenotype and cytogenetics at diagnosis, BM response after one course of chemotherapy and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) treatment were studied. We found that normal albumin level (serum albumin >3.5 g/dL) was significantly associated with superior overall survival (HR = 0.375, p < .001) and leukemia-free survival (HR = 0.411, p < .001). These results demonstrate that albumin could serve as a simple, cheap, and objective prognostication factor in refinement of AML regimens.

Keywords:

• Acute myeloid leukemia
• serum albumin
• overall survival
• leukemia-free survival

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the Wenzhou Municipal Sci-Tech Bureau’s Program (No. Y20180218) and Medical Health Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Provincial Health Commission (No. 2019KY452).