Prognostic value of preoperative prognostic nutritional index in patients with renal cell carcinoma after nephrectomy

The present study was performed to explore the prognostic value of prognostic nutritional index (PNI) in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients following nephrectomy.

A total of 660 patients were included. PNI was calculated based on the following formula: serum albumin level (g/L) + 0.005 × total lymphocyte count (per mm³). Kaplan-Meier survival curve and the log-rank test were conducted. Univariate analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis were performed to explore the prognostic factors.

The patients in low PNI group were more likely to be older (P < 0.001), have a larger tumor (P < 0.001), higher pathological T stage (P < 0.001), positive lymph node (P = 0.038), distant metastasis (P = 0.005), higher tumor grade (P < 0.001) and tumor necrosis (P < 0.001). Multivariable analysis revealed low preoperative PNI was an independent predictor of overall survival (OS) (P = 0.034) and progression-free survival (PFS) (P = 0.004) for all patients. Besides, low preoperative PNI was also significantly associated with poor OS (P = 0.008), cancer-specific survival (CSS) (P = 0.032) and PFS (P = 0.003) for non-metastatic RCC patients.

The patients with lower preoperative PNI were associated with adverse factors. Furthermore, the low preoperative PNI was also associated with inferior oncological outcomes in RCC patients who underwent nephrectomy.