Albumin-globulin ratio for prediction of long-term mortality in lung adenocarcinoma patients.

BACKGROUND Prior studies showed a relationship between serum albumin and the albumin to globulin ratio with different types of cancer. We aimed to evaluate the predictive value of the albumin-globulin ratio (AGR) for survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS This retrospective study included 240 lung adenocarcinoma patients. Biochemical parameters before chemotherapy were collected and survival status was obtained from the hospital registry. The AGR was calculated using the equation AGR=albumin/ (total protein-albumin) and ranked from lowest to highest, the total number of patients being divided into three equal tertiles according to the AGR values. Furthermore, AGR was divided into two groups (low and high tertiles) for ROC curve analysis. Cox model analysis was used to evaluate the prognostic value of AGR and AGR tertiles. RESULTS The mean survival time for each tertile was: for the 1st 9.8 months (95%CI:7.765-11.848), 2nd 15.4 months (95%CI:12.685-18.186), and 3rd 19.9 months (95%CI:16.495-23.455) (p<0.001). Kaplan-Meier curves showed significantly higher survival rates with the third and high tertiles of AGR in comparison with the first and low tertiles, respectively. At multivariate analysis low levels of albumin and AGR, low tertile of AGR and high performance status remained an independent predictors of mortality. CONCLUSIONS Low AGR was a significant predictor of long-term mortality in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Serum albumin measurement and calculation of AGR are easily accessible and cheap to use for predicting mortality in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.