Preoperative Albumin to Globulin Ratio (AGR) as Prognostic Factor in Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background: Malnutrition and systemic inflammatory response are frequently associated with prognosis in patients with several types of cancer, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The study is aimed to investigate the ability of preoperative serum albumin to globulin ratio (AGR) to predict the long-term mortality of RCC patients. Methods: The study is a retrospective study of an unselected cohort of 895 RCC patients who underwent a curative radical or partial nephrectomy at the Department of Urology in the Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center between January 2000 and December 2012 and had documented preoperative serum total protein and albumin (ALB) levels. The preoperative AGR was calculated as the ratio of ALB to (total protein-ALB) and its association with other clinical indices was assessed using survival analysis. Results: Low preoperative AGR was associated with older population, lower hemoglobin, higher total protein, lower ALB, lower body mass index and advanced stage. The univariate and multivariate Cox analyses demonstrated that preoperative AGR was an independent prognostic indicator of overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio (HR): 0.63, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.43 to 0.93, P=0.022). In addition, patients with low preoperative AGR at pT1-2, pT3-4, pN0, pN1, pM0 and pM1 stages had significantly shorter OS than patients with high preoperative AGR. Conclusion: Preoperative AGR is a proven objective, reproducible, inexpensive survival predictor of RCC patients following surgical resection and should be considered for routine clinical use.

Journal of Cancer. 2017 Jan 15*** epublish ***

Xiaobo He, Shengjie Guo, Dong Chen, Guangwei Yang, Xin Chen, Yijun Zhang, Qiuming He, Zike Qin, Zhuowei Liu, Yunfei Xue, Meng Zhang, Ruiwu Liu, Fangjian Zhou, Hui Han, Kai Yao

Department of Urology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China; Department of Medical Oncology, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, China., Department of Urology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China., Department of Medical Oncology, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, China., Department of Pathology, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China., Medicine school of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China., Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of California Davis, Sacramento, California, United States of America.