Prognostic value of postoperative decrease in serum albumin on surgically resected early-stage non-small cell lung...

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Surgical Oncology
• Nutritional Science

Background:

• Preoperative nutritional status is a known prognostic factor in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
• The impact of postoperative nutritional status changes on NSCLC outcomes remains largely unclear.
• This study investigates the prognostic significance of postoperative serum albumin decrease in early-stage NSCLC.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the prognostic value of postoperative serum albumin decrease (ΔAlb) in patients with early-stage NSCLC.
• To assess the association between ΔAlb and disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).

Main Methods:

• Analysis of two cohorts (training and validation) of pStage IA NSCLC patients who underwent surgery.
• Calculation of ΔAlb as the percentage change in serum albumin from pre- to 1-year post-surgery.
• Multivariable analysis to identify independent prognostic factors for DFS and OS.

Main Results:

• A ΔAlb cutoff of 11% was established.
• ΔAlb-Decreased was associated with male sex, smoking, and non-adenocarcinoma histology in the training cohort, and pT1b and non-adenocarcinoma in the validation cohort.
• ΔAlb was identified as an independent prognostic factor for both DFS and OS in both cohorts, with ΔAlb-Decreased patients showing significantly worse survival.

Conclusions:

• Postoperative decrease in serum albumin negatively impacts the prognosis of early-stage NSCLC patients.
• Monitoring postoperative nutritional status, specifically serum albumin levels, is important for predicting outcomes in NSCLC.
• These findings highlight the role of nutritional status changes in NSCLC prognosis post-surgery.