Although there had been some improvement of treatment results by the combination of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with esophagectomy, the overall prognosis for patients with esophageal cancer remained poor. Selection of optimal treatment strategy for individual patients would be improved by an objective biomarker that can predict prognosis accurately. The aim of this prospective study was to evaluate whether serum concentration of C-reactive protein (CRP) can be used as a prognostic factor to predict the survival of esophageal cancer patients treated with radiotherapy. Between Nov 2002 and July 2007, patients undergoing radiotherapy for newly diagnosed esophageal cancer were eligible for inclusion into this study. Serum CRP concentration was measured prospectively before the initiation of treatment. The relationship between the serum CRP levels and clinicopathological parameters were analyzed retrospectively. The prognosis factors of esophageal cancer were statistically determined. A total of 123 patients consisting of 120 males and 3 females were enrolled in this study. 81 patients (65.9%) had high CRP levels (greater than 5 mg/L). Patients with CRP levels higher than 5 mg/L had a shorter overall survival (P < 0.001). The 2-year survival was 78.4% for patients with CRP < 5 mg/L compared with 7.8% with CRP¡Ù5 mg/L. Hypoalbuminemia (albumin< 3.5g/dL) was significantly related to shorter survival in univariate analysis. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that higher serum CRP concentration and hypoalbuminemia were both independent prognostic factors for esophageal cancer. Pretreatment serum CRP and albumin levels are easily measurable biomarkers and are significant prognostic factors for esophageal cancer. They can be used in combination with the conventional staging system to predict survival and stratify patients with esophageal cancer treated with radiotherapy more accurately.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-1224107-125849 |
| Date | 24 December 2007 |
| Creators | Wang, Chang-Yu |
| Contributors | Yow-Ling Shiue, Hurng-Wern Huang, Ming-Jang Hsieh |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-1224107-125849 |
| Rights | withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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