Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) Score is a Prognostic Marker for Gastric Cancer Patients After Curative Resection

Background: Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT), as calculated from serum albumin, total cholesterol concentration, and total lymphocyte count, was previously shown to be useful for nutritional assessment. The current study investigated the potential use of CONUT as a prognostic marker in gastric cancer patients after curative resection.

Methods: Preoperative CONUT was retrospectively calculated in 416 gastric cancer patients who underwent curative resection at Kumamoto University Hospital from 2005 to 2014. The patients were divided into two groups: CONUT-high (≥4) and CONUT-low (≤3), according to time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The associations of CONUT with clinicopathological factors and survival were evaluated.

Results: CONUT-high patients were significantly older (p < 0.001) and had a lower body mass index (p = 0.019), deeper invasion (p < 0.001), higher serum carcinoembryonic antigen (p = 0.037), and higher serum carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (p = 0.007) compared with CONUT-low patients. CONUT-high patients had significantly poorer overall survival (OS) compared with CONUT-low patients according to univariate and multivariate analyses (hazard ratio: 5.09, 95% confidence interval 3.12-8.30, p < 0.001). In time-dependent ROC analysis, CONUT had a higher area under the ROC curve (AUC) for the prediction of 5-year OS than the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio, the Modified Glasgow Prognostic Score, or pStage. When the time-dependent AUC curve was used to predict OS, CONUT tended to maintain its predictive accuracy for long-term survival at a significantly higher level for an extended period after surgery when compared with the other markers tested.

Conclusions: CONUT is useful for not only estimating nutritional status but also for predicting long-term OS in gastric cancer patients after curative resection.