Further comments on "A practical prognostic index for inoperable non-small-cell lung cancer"

Prognostic Factors in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

“…The study also identified the following three prognostic subgroups for patients receiving cisplatin chemotherapy that had significantly distinct survival expectations: based on performance status, age, and hemoglobin and serum LDH levels. Other studies employing secondary analysis of clinical trial information have reached similar con- 54 Performance status 12,15,53,55-60 SVCO 1 Additional factors Anatomic Sex 12,52,56 "T" factor 10 Symptoms 27,60 "N" factor 10 Age 12 Clinical stage IIIA vs IIIB 61 Number of sites involved 12,53,62 Pleural effusion 63 Liver metastases 64 Clinical chemistry/hematology Hemoglobin 12,15,38,60 LDH 12 Albumin 57 New or promising factors Clinical chemistry/hematology Quality of life [16][17][18] Coagulation factors [65][66][67][68] Marital status 16 Proteinuria 69 Depressed mood 70 CYPIA1 37 Proliferation markers DNA ploidy and/or % S-phase 71 Ki-67 72 Other molecular biologic markers Replication errors 2p/3p 73 clusions, 13 as have retrospective studies of patients who were not enrolled in clinical trial protocols. 14,15 New and promising prognostic factors also are listed in Table 2.…”

“…6 Second, the quality of published reports is variable. While fully described studies can be seen to differ from one another, some studies are described in insufficient detail to determine the study methods and to identify important variations, 38 and this missing information further complicates the interpretation of the literature. This problem is germane to studies of molecular markers, in which differences in laboratory techniques have been shown to have a marked impact on the study results, 39 and is equally relevant to assessing patient-based factors, in which valid methods for measuring and evaluating psychosocial and behavioral factors and related outcomes are required.…”

Tumor-related leucocytosis and chemotherapy-induced neutropenia: Linked or independent prognostic factors for advanced non-small cell lung cancer?

“…Age, gender, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) PS, tumor stage (stage IIIB vs. stage IV), body mass index (BMI), creatinine level, hemoglobin (Hgb) level, white blood cell (WBC) Although the predicted survival for patients with stage IIIB disease who had a high WBC count appears to be relatively better, the number of patients in this subset was small (n = 24 patients). The prognostic importance of complete blood count findings has been previously reported less consistently [29][30][31][32][33][34]. In fact none of the previous large series observed that both the pretreatment Hgb level and the WBC count were of independent prognostic value.…”

A prognostic model for advanced stage nonsmall cell lung cancer

“…23 However, the prognostic importance of complete blood count findings has been reported less consistently. [25][26][27][28][29][30] None of the previous series observed that both the pretreatment Hgb level and the WBC count were of independent prognostic value. The results of our current review highlight the prognostic importance of both the pretreatment Hgb level and the pretreatment WBC count in determining OS and TTP.…”