Plasma fibrinogen and serum albumin levels (FA score) act as a promising prognostic indicator in non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Background

Evidence implies that preoperative plasma fibrinogen and serum albumin are associated with cancer prognosis. We aimed to explore the prognostic values of the score based on plasma fibrinogen and serum albumin levels (FA score) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and to compare that with prognostic nutritional index (PNI).

Patients and methods

In all, 182 patients pathologically diagnosed with NSCLC were included in this study. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and multivariate analysis were used in the prognostic analyses.

Results

High FA score was related to smoking (P=0.005), poor differential grade (P=0.002), and advanced T stage (P<0.001) and tumor, node, and metastases stage (P=0.011). Low PNI showed association with advanced T stage (P=0.030). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis indicated that high FA score and low PNI were associated with poor progression-free survival (PFS; for the FA score, P<0.001; for PNI, P=0.001) and overall survival (OS; for the FA score, P<0.001; for PNI, P=0.013), respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that FA score was an independent predictor for PFS (P=0.003) and OS (P=0.001) in NSCLC patients.

Conclusion

The FA score could act as a more promising prognostic predictor than PNI in NSCLC patients who underwent pneumonectomy.

Keywords:

• non-small cell lung cancer
• surgical treatment
• serum albumin
• plasma fibrinogen
• prognostic nutritional index
• prognosis

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no 81572958), Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2015HQ024), and Science and Technology Development Planning Project of Shandong Province (2014GSF118058).

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.