Clinical significance of serum oxidative stress and serum uric acid levels before surgery for hepatitis B-related liver cancer

BACKGROUND: The incidence and mortality of liver cancer are among the highest of all malignant tumors in China. The high recurrence rate after conventional hepatectomy is worrying. There is a lack of effective prognostic indicators for liver cancer. AIM: To explore the clinical significance of preoperative serum oxidative stress and serum uric acid (UA) levels in hepatitis B-related liver cancer. METHODS: The medical records of 110 hepatitis B-related liver cancer patients who underwent hepatectomy in Gansu Provincial Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Recurrence in patients within 3 years after surgery was determined. The logistic regression model and Pearson or Spearman correlation were used to analyze the correlation between oxidative stress level and UA, and the recurrence of hepatitis B-related liver cancer. RESULTS: Compared with the non-recurrence group, the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH) in the recurrence group were lower and the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and UA were higher (all P < 0.05). UA, SOD, MDA, and GSH were risk factors for postoperative recurrence in hepatitis B-related liver cancer patients (P < 0.05). UA was positively correlated with MDA (r = 0.395, P < 0.001) and negatively correlated with GSH (r = -0.204, P = 0.032). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of SOD, MDA, GSH, and UA in predicting the prognosis was 0.276, 0.910, 0.199, and 0.784, respectively (all P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The preoperative serum SOD, GSH, MDA, and UA levels had significant predictive effects on postoperative recurrence of hepatitis B-related liver cancer.