Published online Mar 27, 2021. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v13.i3.279
Peer-review started: November 10, 2020
First decision: December 20, 2020
Revised: January 1, 2021
Accepted: January 21, 2021
Article in press: January 21, 2021
Published online: March 27, 2021
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the digestive system tumors with the highest degree of malignancy and the worst prognosis. Patients with malignant tumors frequently exhibit hyperactivation of the coagulation system and secondary increased fibrinolytic activity. Fibrinogen and D-dimer are common indicators that are crucial in the coagulation/fibrinolysis system.
Both indicators, fibrinogen and D-dimer, have been verified to have predictive value in the overall survival (OS) of many patients with solid malignancies. To date, there have been no reports on the correlation of the synergistic value of fibrinogen and D-dimer with the prognosis of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) undergoing radical R0 resection.
The main objective of our study was to explore the prognostic significance of fibrinogen combined with D-dimer in PDAC patients undergoing radical R0 resection.
We retrospectively analyzed the data of 282 PDAC patients undergoing radical R0 resection in the Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, between January 2010 and December 2019. The surv_cutpoint function of R language was used to determine the optimal cutoff values of the preoperative fibrinogen concentration and preoperative D-dimer concentration. Enrolled patients were further divided into the any-high group (high preoperative fibrinogen concentration and/or high preoperative D-dimer concentration) and the low-low group (low preoperative fibrinogen and D-dimer concentrations) according to the optimal cutoff values.
The optimal cutoff values of the preoperative fibrinogen concentration and preoperative D-dimer concentration were 3.31 g/L and 0.53 mg/L, respectively. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the preoperative fibrinogen concentration (HR: 1.603, 95%CI: 1.201-2.140, P = 0.001) and preoperative D-dimer concentration (HR: 1.355, 95%CI: 1.019-1.801, P = 0.036) exhibited obvious correlations with the OS of PDAC patients undergoing radical R0 resection. A prognostic analysis was further performed based on the subgroup results by using fibrinogen combined with D-dimer. The median OS duration of the low-low group (31.17 mo) was significantly longer than that of the any-high group (15.43 mo).
Preoperative fibrinogen combined with D-dimer plays a predictive role in OS, and low preoperative fibrinogen and D-dimer concentrations can indicate prolonged OS in PDAC patients undergoing radical R0 resection.
In the future, multicenter prospective studies with a larger sample size are required to verify our results. The inclusion of more coagulation-related indicators should be carried out to analyze their dynamic changes over disease progression, and the results may be more instructive.