The Ratio of C-Reactive ProteinAlbumin is a Novel Inflammatory Predictor of Overall Survival in Cisplatin-Based Treated Patients with Metastatic Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Abstract EN

The C-reactive protein/albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio has been recently identified as a prognostic factor in various cancers, whereas its role remains unclear in metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

The current study retrospectively analyzed 148 patients with metastatic NPC who underwent cisplatin-based chemotherapy and further evaluated the prognostic value of the CRP/Alb ratio and its association with clinical characteristics in these patients.

The optimal cut-off value was 0.189 for the CRP/Alb ratio.

The high CRP/Alb ratio was significantly associated with elevated NLR, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and EBV-DNA levels and decreased haemoglobin level (all p<0.05).

The results of multivariate analysis showed that the CRP/Alb ratio was an independent prognostic factor of overall survival.

Patients with a high CRP/Alb ratio (≥0.189) had a 1.867 times (p=0.024, 95% CI=1.085–3.210) greater risk of mortality compared with those with a low CRP/Alb ratio (<0.189).

In addition, combining the CRP/Alb ratio with GPS could accurately discriminate the prognosis of our patients.

Our results suggested that the CRP/Alb ratio is a feasible and inexpensive tool for predicting survival outcomes and is a valuable coadjutant for the GPS to further identify differences in survivals of patients with metastatic NPC.