Research article
C-reactive protein in patients with advanced metastatic renal cell carcinoma: Usefulness in identifying patients most likely to benefit from initial nephrectomy
1 Department of Urology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0004, Japan
2 Department of Urology, Kanagawa Cancer Center, Yokohama, Japan
BMC Cancer 2012, 12:337 doi:10.1186/1471-2407-12-337
Published: 2 August 2012Abstract
Objective
C-reactive protein (CRP) is considered a useful serum marker for patients with RCC. However, its clinical utility in advanced metastatic renal cell carcinoma (AM-RCC), particularly in deciding whether to perform nephrectomy at the onset, is not well studied.
Patients and methods
We retrospectively evaluated 181 patients with AM-RCC, including 18 patients underwent potentially curative surgery, 111 underwent cytoreductive nephrectomy, and 52 received medical treatment only. CRP cutoff points were determined by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were used for survival tests.
Results
ROC analysis suggested that grouping patients according to 3 CRP ranges was a rational model. Patients with highly elevated CRP (≥67.0 mg/L) presented remarkably poor prognosis despite treatment (nephrectomy or medical treatment only). Cox regression models demonstrated that risk factors of overall survival for patients who underwent nephrectomy were the CRP ranges defined in this study (≤18.0 mg/L, >18.0 and <67.0 mg/L, and ≥67.0 mg/L), ECOG PS (0, 1, and ≥2), and number of metastatic organ sites (0–1 and ≥2). The retrospective design is a limitation of this study.
Conclusion
Our study demonstrated that the serum CRP level is a statistically significant prognostic parameter for patients with AM-RCC. The data also indicated that pretreatment serum CRP level provides useful prognostic information that helps in deciding whether to perform initial nephrectomy for patients with AM-RCC.
