Prognostic nutritional index before adjuvant chemotherapy predicts chemotherapy compliance and survival among patients with non-small-cell lung cancer

Katsuhiko Shimizu, Riki Okita, Shinsuke Saisho, Takuro Yukawa, Ai Maeda, Yuji Nojima, Masao Nakata Department of General Thoracic Surgery, Kawasaki Medical School, Kurashiki, Japan Background: Adjuvant chemotherapy after the complete resection of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is now the standard of care. To improve survival, it is important to identify risk factors for the continuation of adjuvant chemotherapy. In this study, we analyzed chemotherapy compliance and magnitude of the prognostic impact of the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) before adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of data from 106 patients who had received adjuvant chemotherapy. The adjuvant chemotherapy consisted of an oral tegafur agent (OT) or platinum-based chemotherapy (PB). The correlations between the PNI values and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were then evaluated. Results: In the PB group, the percentage of patients who completed the four planned cycles of chemotherapy was not correlated with the PNI. In the OT group, however, a significant difference was observed in the percentage of patients who completed the planned chemotherapy according to the PNI before adjuvant chemotherapy. The RFS of patients with a PNI