Prognostic significance of pretreatment serum lactate dehydrogenase-to-albumin ratio in gastric cancer

AIM OF THE STUDY: To investigate the prognostic role of lactate dehydrogenase-to-albumin ratio (LAR) in gastric cancer patients undergoing curative resection. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted including resectable gastric cancer patients. According to the time-dependent receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis, the optimal threshold for pretreatment LAR was 5.5. The Kaplan-Meier method, Cox regression univariate and multivariate analyses were used to analyze the prognostic factors for disease-free survival and overall survival (OS). RESULTS: The study cohort consisted of 81 patients, mean age was 60.2 ±13.8 (range, 29–87) years and 55 (67.9%) were male. The median OS time was 34.8 and 45 months in patients with LAR ≥ 5.5 (n = 50) and LAR < 5.5 (n = 31), respectively. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that with the increase in LAR there was reduced survival, but it was not statistically significant (p = 0.278). Multivariate analyses revealed that the positive lymph node ratio above 20% was an independent predictor in resectable gastric cancer patients (OR = 6.281, 95% CI: 1.135–34.767, p = 0.035). CONCLUSIONS: With the increase in LAR survival in gastric cancer decreased, but it was not statistically significant. Studies involving a large patient series are needed.