Low Serum Albumin Predicts Inferior Outcome in Patients with Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

Serum albumin (SA) has been used to predict survival in many tumors, but its prognostic significance in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients remains controversial. Herein, we retrospectively analyzed 215 de novo DLBCL patients in this study. Serum albumin cutoff value for survival analysis was 39.2 g/L with an area under the curve value of 0.722±0.05 (p=0.03) by receiver operating characteristic curve. Patients with low serum albumin (<39.2 g/L) were more present with B symptoms, elevated LDH and higher international prognostic index score (p=0.035, p=0.006 and p=0.001, respectively). There was no significant difference in gender, age, performance status, number of extranodal sites, stage and cell of origin subtype in high and low serum albumin group( p >0.05). Patients with low serum albumin showed worse event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) (p=0.001 and p=0.024, respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that low serum albumin, independent of IPI, indicated different survival in both OS (relative ratio [RR] 4.134; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.615-10.583, p=0.003) and EFS (RR, 1.764; 95% CI, 1.031-3.015, p=0.038) in DLBCL patients. In conclusion, these data suggest that serum albumin at diagnosis is a simple and effective prognostic factor in DLBCL patients.