Low Perioperative Serum Prealbumin Predicts Early Recurrence after Curative Pulmonary Resection for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Early recurrence after surgery for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is often observed in spite of pathologically proven early-stage disease. The aim of this study was to identify biomarkers that might be useful in predicting postoperative early recurrence of lung cancer. In this study we evaluated the perioperative nutritional status of the patients by measuring the serum level of prealbumin and analyzed the correlation between this factor and early recurrence. Forty-four patients with NSCLC were enrolled in the study. Serum level of prealbumin was measured 5 days before and 7 days after surgery, respectively. For the patients who developed early recurrence, the perioperative serum prealbumin level was statistically significantly lower than those of the patients who did not develop recurrence (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the patients with low prealbumin level showed statistically significantly poorer outcomes compared with the patients with higher prealbumin level (p < 0.001). On the other hand, there was no correlation between the pathological stage and the serum prealbumin level. Multivariate analysis revealed that low perioperative serum prealbumin level could be an independent prognostic factor of poor outcome (hazard ratio, 10.1; 95 % confidence interval, 2.8-35.5; p = 0.0003). Low serum prealbumin level in the perioperative period is associated with a poorer prognosis in NSCLC patients and could serve as a marker for identifying patients at high risk, even at an early clinical stage.