Prognostic Effect of the Controlling Nutritional Status Score in Patients With Esophageal Cancer Treated With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor

In recent years, a growing number of clinical studies have shown that immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) can increase the remission rate and improve the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer. The Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score is a novel nutritional indicator that can predict the prognosis of certain malignancies. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 69 patients with advanced esophageal cancer treated with ICI and assessed the relationship between clinicopathological factors including CONUT score, systemic immune-inflammatory index (SII), and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and the prognosis. We found the CONUT score and SII, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio were an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (P<0.05). Furthermore, among patients treated with ICI, a high CONUT score was associated with a significantly worse progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival compared with a low CONUT group. In conclusion, the CONUT can be used to predict the efficacy and prognosis of ICI therapy in patients with esophageal cancer. Our studies have shown that the CONUT score can be used as an effective indicator for the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer receiving ICI.