The Association of Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) Score with Survival in Patients with Surgically Treated Renal Cell Carcinoma and Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

In recent years, Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) Score has become widely recognized as a novel index to evaluate the survival in urological neoplasms patients, especially with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). The aim of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the prognostic value of CONUT score in patients with RCC and UTUC. PubMed, Web of Science and Embase were searched for data on the association between CONUT score and RCC/UTUC prognosis up to July 29, 2021. Duplicates were excluded, and inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied to all abstracts. We sorted out relevant studies and extracted the risk ratios (RRs) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) for recurrence-free survival (RFS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), and overall survival (OS). The relationship between gender and survival outcomes was analyzed using univariate cox regression. We analyzed seven studies including 5410 patients in the meta-analysis. A high CONUT score was associated with poor 5-year RFS (RR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.13–1.43, P = 0.0001), CSS (RR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.07–1.39, P = 0.003) and OS (RR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.10–1.41, P = 0.0005). As a result, the association between CONUT score and survival was statistically significant. In addition, gender was not related to survival outcomes. Our results show that the CONUT score is associated with RCC and UTUC outcomes and can serve as a readily available biomarker for managing this disease.

Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge Zhen Huang for his assistance in data collection and transcription.

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Funding

This study was funded by China Primary Healthy Care Foundation – Youan Foundation of Liver Disease and AIDS.

Registration number: YNKTQN20180212