Fasting Blood Glucose-Based Novel Predictors in Detecting Metastases and Predicting Prognosis for Patients with PNENs

To explore three novel fasting blood glucose (FBG)-based novel indicators, including the FBG-to-albumin ratio (FAR), FBG-to-lymphocytes ratio (FLR), and FBG-to-hemoglobin ratio (FHR), in predicting prognosis and detecting metastasis for patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (pNENs) after resection.

A total of 178 pNENs patients who underwent surgical resection were included in this study. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the diagnosis values of FAR, FLR, and FHR, and the cutoff values were obtained for further analyses. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to determine the independent predictors. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to evaluate the progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of the pNENs patients.

The optimal cutoff values of FAR, FLR, and FHR were 0.17, 2.85, and 0.028, respectively. As for PFS, the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.693 for FAR, 0.690 for FLR, and 0.661 for FHR, respectively. The AUC was 0.770, 0.692, and 0.715 accordingly for OS. The groups with lower FAR, FLR, and FHR were significantly associated with prolonged PFS and OS (p < 0.05). In patients with metastasis, the lower FAR group was correlated with significantly longer PFS and OS (p = 0.022 and 0.002, respectively). The FLR was an independent predictor of PFS in pNENs patients, and the FAR was a predictor of OS. FAR was an independent indicator of PFS in patients with metastasis.

Preoperative FAR, FLR, and FHR are effective in predicting the prognosis of pNEN patients and detecting the synchronous metastases.