Controlling nutritional status is a prognostic factor for patients with lung cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Nowadays, controlling nutritional status (CONUT) has been used as a prognostic factor in variety of cancers. However, no consensus has been reached on the prognostic value of CONUT in lung cancer. In this study, we aim to investigate the role of CONUT in survival of patients with lung cancer.

Methods: EMBASE, web of science, and Medline were used to search articles in English-language journals. The association between CONUT score and survival of patients with lung cancer was evaluated by using pooled HRs and their 95% CIs. Chi-square test and I-Square was used to test heterogeneity among studies. Analyses were all performed using Stata 13.0 (Stata Corporation, College Station, TX).

Results: Eight studies with 1,836 patients were eventually included in this meta-analysis. The pooled results showed that high CONUT score had an unfavorable impact on OS (HR =1.63, 95% CI: 1.30-2.04), DFS (HR =1.75, 95% CI: 1.35-2.26), CSS (HR =1.45, 95% CI: 1.01-2.07) and PFS (HR =1.67, 95% CI: 0.99-2.35), compared with those with low-CONUT.

Conclusions: CONUT can be used as a predictor of prognosis in patients with lung cancer. High-CONUT score was significantly associated with poor OS, DFS, CSS and PFS.