High red blood cell distribution width is associated with the mortality of critically ill cancer patients: A...

The red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is related to the mortality of patients with malignant tumors, but the relationship between RDW and the prognosis of cancer patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) has not been fully clarified.

To investigate the role of RDW in predicting the prognosis of critically ill cancer patients.

A propensity score matching (PSM) study was conducted using data from adult patients with cancer, admitted to the ICU from the Intensive Care Medical Information Market IV (MIMIC-IV, v. 1.4) database. The correlation between RDW and ICU all-cause mortality was evaluated using a logistic regression model; stratification factors were considered. Additionally, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to compare the prognostic values of various blood biomarkers.

Overall, 4836 cancer patients were included. The optimal critical RDW value was 15%. The RDW levels were independently correlated with ICU mortality in critically ill cancer patients, with odds ratios (ORs) of 1.56 (1.12-2.18) in the original cohort, 1.64 (1.27-2.12) in the imputation cohort, 1.65 (1.22-2.24) in the matched cohort, and 1.55 (1.19-2.03) in the weighted cohort. The forecasted performance of RDW is better than other blood biomarkers with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.637 (0.591-0.683).

The RDW has a prognostic value in critically ill cancer patients and a high RDW is independently associated with high mortality.