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Published on: May 17, 2019
Is red cell distribution width a prognostic factor in patients with breast cancer? A meta-analysis
Jun-Ming Yin1, Ke-Peng Zhu1, Zhi-Wei Guo1
1Mastothyroid Vascular Surgery, The Second Clinical Medical College of North Sichuan Medical College Nanchong Central Hospital, Nanchong, China.
Purpose:
The current study aimed to investigate whether red blood cell distribution width (RDW) can predict the prognosis of patients with breast cancer (BC).
Methods:
We searched four databases, including PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library databases, and CNKI, from inception to Jun 13, 2022. The primary outcome was overall survival (OS), and the secondary outcome was disease-free survival (DFS). A subgroup analysis was conducted based on different treatments. This meta-analysis was performed with RevMan 5.3 (The Cochrane Collaboration, London, United Kingdom).
Results:
A total of seven studies including 4,884 BC patients were identified. The high RDW group had a larger tumor size (OR = 2.12, 95% CI = 1.67 to 2.68, P < 0.01), higher proportions of advanced stage tumors (OR = 1.77, 95% CI = 1.38 to 2.27, P < 0.01), more lymph node metastases (OR = 2.00, 95% CI = 1.58 to 2.51, P < 0.01) and lower HER-2 expression (OR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.61 to 0.95, P = 0.02). For prognosis, after pooling all the data, we found that the high RDW group was associated with worse OS (HR = 2.12, 95% CI = 1.47 to 3.08, P < 0.01) and DFS (HR = 1.77, 95% CI = 1.32 to 2.37, P < 0.01). The subgroup analysis found that RDW had prognostic significance but only for surgery-only patients (HR = 2.41, 95% CI = 1.67 to 3.49, P < 0.01).
Conclusion:
High RDW was associated with worse OS and DFS. Therefore, RDW was a simple predictive factor for the prognosis of BC patients.
