The C-reactive protein/albumin ratio, a validated prognostic score, predicts outcome of surgical renal cell carcinoma patients

BACKGROUND: The preoperative C-reactive protein/Albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio has been shown to be valuable in predicting the prognosis of patients with certain cancers. The aim of our study is to explore its prognostic value in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). METHODS: A retrospective study was performed in 570 RCC patients underwent radical or partial nephrectomy including 541 patients who received full resection of localized (T1-3 N0/+ M0) RCC. The optimal cutoff value of CRP/Alb was determined by the receive operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The impact of the CRP/Alb and other clinicopathological characteristics on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) was evaluated using the univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis. RESULTS: The optimal cutoff of CRP/Alb ratio was set at 0.08 according to the ROC analysis. Multivariate analysis indicated that CRP/Alb ratio was independently associated with OS of RCC patients underwent radical or partial nephrectomy (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.94; 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.12–3.36; P = 0.018), and DFS of localized RCC patients underwent full resection (HR: 2.14; 95% CI: 1.22–3.75; P = 0.008). CONCLUSION: Elevated CRP/Alb ratio was an independent prognostic indicator for poor OS in patients underwent radical or partial nephrectomy and DFS of localized RCC patients underwent full resection. Overall, CRP/Alb may help to identify patients with high relapse risk. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-017-3119-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.