Impact of albumin to globulin ratio on survival outcomes of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Abstract

Objective: The albumin to globulin ratio (AGR) has been demonstrated to be associated with survival outcomes in various tumor types. However, the prognostic value of AGR in patients with metastatic renal carcinoma (mRCC) remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of AGR values in predicting overall survival (OS) of patients with mRCC treated with targeted therapy.

Material and methods: A total of 163 patients with mRCC treated with targeted therapy between 2008 and 2019 were enrolled. The AGR value was measured as AGR: albumin/(total protein–albumin). The Kaplan-Meier method with long-rank testing and Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the correlation of AGR with OS.

Results: The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the optimal cut-off value of AGR in predicting OS was 1.11 with a sensitivity of 37.25% and specificity of 85.25% (area under curve, 0.62; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.54-0.69; p=0.005). OS was significantly higher in patients with AGR>1.11 than in those with AGR≤1.11 (36.2 vs. 12.4 months; p<0.001). After adjustment for the number of covariates, multivariate Cox regression analysis identified a high AGR as an independent indicator of better OS (hazard ratio, 0.476; 95% CI, 0.304-0.745; p=0.001).

Conclusion: Our results suggested that AGR value, which is an easily obtainable and cost-effective marker in routine biochemistry testing, could function as an independent predictor of OS in patients with mRCC treated with targeted therapy.