%0 Journal Article
%T Baseline hemoglobin <11.0 g/dL has stronger prognostic value than anemia status in nasopharynx cancers treated with chemoradiotherapy
%A Ali Ayberk Besen
%A Berna Akkus Yildirim
%A Duygu Sezen
%A Erkan Topkan
%A H¨ıseyin Mertsoylu
%A Nur Y¨ıcel Ekici
%A Ugur Selek
%A Yurday Ozdemir
%J The International Journal of Biological Markers
%@ 1724-6008
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1724600818821688
%X To retrospectively investigate the influence of pretreatment anemia and hemoglobin levels on the survival of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (C-CRT). A total of 149 nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients who received C-CRT were included. All patients had received 70 Gy to the primary tumor plus the involved lymph nodes, and 59.4 Gy and 54 Gy to the intermediate- and low-risk neck regions concurrent with 1¨C3 cycles of cisplatin. Patients were dichotomized into non-anemic and anemic (hemoglobin <12 g/dL (women) or <13 g/dL (men)) groups according to their pre-treatment hemoglobin measures. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was utilized for accessibility of a pre-treatment hemoglobin cut-off that impacts outcomes. Potential interactions between baseline anemia status and hemoglobin measures and overall survival, locoregional progression-free survival (LRPFS), and progression-free survival were assessed. Anemia was evident in 36 patients (24.1%), which was related to significantly shorter overall survival (P=0.007), LRPFS (P<0.021), and progression-free survival (P=0.003) times; all three endpoints retained significance in multivariate analyses (P<0.05, for each). A baseline hemoglobin value of 11.0 g/dL exhibited significant association with outcomes in ROC curve analysis: hemoglobin <11.0 g/dL (N=26) was linked with shorter median overall survival (P<0.001), LRPFS (P=0.004), and progression-free survival (P<0.001) times, which also retained significance for all three endpoints in multivariate analyses and suggested a stronger prognostic worth for the hemoglobin <11.0 g/dL cut-off value than the anemia status. Pre-C-CRT hemoglobin <11.0 g/dL has a stronger prognostic worth than the anemia status with regard to LRPFS, progression-free survival, and overall survival for nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients
%K Anemia
%K concurrent chemoradiotherapy
%K hemoglobin
%K nasopharyngeal carcinoma
%K prognosis
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1724600818821688