Preoperative AST and AST/ALT ratio predict clinical outcome in patients with non-metastatic renal cell carcinoma with tumor thrombus / 中华泌尿外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the value of preoperative aspartate transaminase(AST) and aspartate transaminase/alanine transaminase ratio(AST/ALT)for predicting the prognosis in patients with non-metastatic renal cell carcinoma with tumor thrombus.Methods:A retrospective analysis was made of the patients with renal cell carcinoma with tumor thrombus in our institution from February 2015 to December 2018. This study included 80 patients, 56 males and 24 females with mean age of 58 years (range 15-83 years). There were 17 in Mayo level 0, 24 Mayo level I, 22 in Mayo level II, 12 in Mayo level III and 5 in Mayo level IV. All the patients received radical nephrectomy or palliative nephrectomy with tumor thrombectomy. The continuous variable of AST/ALT was collected by ROC curve. The maximum value of Youden index was taken as the critical value, and the continuous variables were adjusted to binary variables. Cancer-specific survival (CSS) was calculated according to the Kaplan-Meier analysis and compared by the log-rank test. Cox multivariate regression analysis was used to analyze the independent factors of the prognosis of patients with non-metastatic renal cancer and tumor thrombus.Results:There were 70 cases of clear cell carcinoma, 10 cases of non-clear cell carcinoma, 30 cases of low Fuhrman grade (grade 1&2), and 50 cases of high Fuhrman grade (grade 3&4). AST was 19U/L (8-226 U/L) and AST/ALT was 1.3(0.4-3.3). There was a significant difference in AST between different lymphovascular invasion groups ( P=0.04), but there was no significant difference in sex, age, Mayo classification, pathological type, Fuhrman grade and lymph node metastasis. The difference of AST / ALT between age groups was significant ( P=0.025). The average follow-up time was 14.7 months (0-44 months). During the follow-up, 11 (13.8%) patients died of tumor. Univariate analysis showed that Fuhrman grade ( P=0.007), lymph node metastasis ( P=0.019), hemoglobin ( P=0.001), alkaline phosphatase (ALP, P=0.001), AST ( P=0.004) and AST / ALT ( P=0.038) were risk factors for CSS. In terms of prognosis, considering the potential correlation between AST level and AST/ALT ratio, after excluding AST, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that high nuclear grade ( HR=3.049, 95% CI 1.292-7.196, P=0.011), high ALP ( HR=1.018, 95% CI 1.007-1.029, P=0.001) and high AST/ALT ratio ( HR=4.094, 95% CI 1.064-15.759, P=0.04) were associated with poor CSS. After excluding AST/ALT ratio, multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that high nuclear grade ( HR=5.836, 95% CI 1.867-18.240, P=0.002) and high AST ( HR=1.040, 95% CI 1.017-1.062, P<0.001) were associated with poor CSS. Conclusions:In patients with non-metastatic renal cell carcinoma with tumor thrombus, high AST/ALT ratio and AST levels indicate poor pathological types and poor prognosis.