Abstract
Background: The present study was designed to examine the prognostic value of a systemic inflammation marker-BAN score, which was established based on body-mass-index (BMI), albumin (ALB) and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in resectable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients. Methods: A total of 420 newly diagnosed ESCC patients in our hospital between January 2008 and December 2013 were included. Their baseline characteristics were retrospectively reviewed and collected. BAN score was calculated as (BMI × ALB/ NLR). The optimal cutoff value for BAN score was defined as 28.0 in terms of survival. Patients were then allocated to high BAN (≥ 28.0) and low BAN (< 28.0) score groups. Results: Pretreatment BAN score was significantly associated with tumor length, white blood cell count, BMI, ALB and NLR levels. However, no significant difference was observed in patients' age, gender, tumor location, degree of differentiation, depth of invasion, lymph node involvement, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage or other variables between groups. Moreover, those with high pretreatment BAN scores (≥ 28.0) tended to have favorable disease free survival (DFS) [hazard ratio (HR), 0.650; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.481-0.877; P = 0.005] and overall survival (OS) (HR, 0.608; 95% CI, 0.445-0.829; P = 0.002) by univariate analysis. Furthermore, multivariate Cox regression analysis suggested that high BAN score (≥ 28.0) could serve as an independent predictor for both DFS (HR, 0.726; 95% CI, 0.532-0.993; P = 0.045) and OS (HR, 0.670; 95% CI, 0.485-0.927; P = 0.016). Conclusions: Pretreatment BAN score could independently predict long-term survival for resectable ESCC patients.