Decrease of Preoperative Serum Albumin-to-Globulin Ratio as a Prognostic Indicator after Radical Cystectomy in Patients with Urothelial Bladder Cancer

Preoperative Nutritional Status and Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) Prior to Radical Cystectomy: A Review of the Literature

Preoperative nutritional status is an important and modifiable risk factor of a patient's recovery and outcome after radical cystectomy. There are multiple malnutrition screening tools and treatment options. In this review, we discuss the best indicators of this condition and how to optimize nutrition status prior to radical cystectomy.

Decreased Preoperative Serum AGR as a Diagnostic Marker of Poor Prognosis after Radical Surgery of Upper Urinary Tract and Bladder Cancers from a Pooled Analysis of 9,002 Patients

A growing number of studies have regarded the preoperative serum albumin-to-globulin ratio (AGR) as a prognostic indicator of urothelial carcinoma (UC) following radical surgery. However, a pooled analysis of AGR's effect on UC prognosis was still insufficient. Up to January 2022, a systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library. Stata SE software was applied in this study. The reviewers collected the hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) for overall survival (OS), cancer-specific survival (CSS), recurrence-free survival (RFS), progression-free survival (PFS), and metastasis-free survival (MFS). A total of 9,002 patients from 12 retrospective studies were included in this analysis. The results showed that preoperative serum AGR was significantly associated with the OS (HR = 1.85, 95%CI = 1.43 to 2.39), CSS (HR = 2.38, 95%CI = 1.69 to 3.34), RFS (HR = 1.64, 95%CI = 1.29 to 2.08), PFS (HR = 2.16, 95%CI = 1.43 to 3.27), and MFS (HR = 3.00, 95%CI = 1.63 to 5.53) of patients with UC following radical surgery. Sensitivity analysis indicated the stability of the results. Subgroup analysis revealed that preoperative low AGR was seen as a risk factor for OS (HR = 1.90, 95%CI = 1.34 to 2.69), CSS (HR = 2.13, 95%CI = 1.40 to 3.26), and RFS (HR = 1.60, 95%CI = 1.24 to 2.07) in upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC), but it was only a risk factor for CSS (HR = 2.95, 95%CI = 1.14 to 7.60) in bladder cancer (BC). Besides, preoperative AGR cut − value ≤ 1.4 could not be deemed as a stable prognostic indicator for RFS (HR = 2.07, 95%CI = 0.71 to 6.04) in UC. However, the predictive ability of AGR cut − value > 1.4 was stable. All in all, preoperative low AGR was considered as a risk factor for UC. AGR level can be regarded as a prognostic indicator for OS, CSS, and RFS in UTUC but only for CSS in BC. AGR greater than 1.4 can be a great cut-off value for predicting the prognosis of UC patients with radical operation.

Prognostic value of pretreatment serum albumin−globulin ratio in urothelial carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective

To evaluate whether pretreatment albumin−globulin ratio (AGR) can be used as a biomarker for predicting the prognosis of patients with urothelial carcinoma (UC).

Methods

We systematically searched PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Google Scholar and Cochrane Library; the search time was up to May 2022. Stata 16.0 was used for data processing and statistical analysis.

Results

We identified 12 studies with 5,727 patients from 317 unique citations during the meta-analysis. Our results suggested that a low AGR before treatment was significantly associated with poor overall survival (OS) [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.99, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.45-2.75, P < 0.001], cancer-specific survival (CSS) [HR=2.01, 95% CI = 1.50-2.69, P < 0.001] and recurrence-free survival (RFS) [HR=1.39, 95% CI = 1.12-1.72, P = 0.002]. Furthermore, we defined different subgroups according to ethnicity, cancer type, cut-off value, sample size and stage. Similar prognostic outcomes for OS and CSS were observed in most subgroups. However, for subgroup of stage, the low pretreatment AGR only predicted the poor survival of patients with non-metastatic UC.

Conclusion

Our meta-analysis revealed that the AGR before treatment could be used as a predictive biomarker to indicate the prognosis of UC patients during clinical practice, especially in patients with non-metastatic UC.

Prognostic value of the controlling nutritional status score in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes

Background

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a heterogeneous spectrum of clonal hematopoietic disorders with varying degrees of cytopenia and morphologic dysplasia. The controlling nutritional status (CONUT) score, an easy-to-use tool for assessing the nutritional status, was reported as an independent prognostic factor in cancer patients. However, its role in patients with MDS is unclear.

Objective

We aimed to explore the impact of CONUT score on the prognosis of patients with MDS, which is of great significance for clinical treatment.

Methods

A total of 121 patients with MDS were analyzed. The CONUT score was calculated prior to therapy. The bio-informatics tool X-tile was used to define the CONUT score and the threshold of 4 points was determined to predict the prognosis. Patients were divided into CONUT^low and CONUT^high groups, and the characteristics were compared between two groups.

Results

Results show that CONUT^low was associated with better overall survival (OS) than CONUT^high patients (Median OS, 30.20 vs. 19.63 months, p = 0.0003). However, there were no statistical differences in progression-free survival (PFS) between the two groups (p = 0.2683). Results of univariate and multivariate COX proportional hazard analysis adjusted for bone marrow blasts level, platelet count, International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS) scores, gender, and hemoglobin (Hb) level showed that the CONUT score was useful in the evaluation standard of OS of MDS (hazard ratio (HR) 2.297, 95% CI 1.441–3.663, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

The CONUT, as a novel immuno-nutritional biomarker, may be useful in predicting the OS of MDS.