Geriatric nutritional risk index is not an independent predictor in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

BACKGROUND: The prognostic value of geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated in the rituximab era was not clear. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prognostic impact of GNRI in patients with DLBCL in our hospital. METHODS: DLBCL patients were recruited and classified into two groups with and without malnutrition based on GNRI. Clinical features, concentration of T-helper cell type (Th1/Th2/Th17) cytokine profiles and overall survival were compared between these two groups. RESULTS: One hundred and five (39%) out of 267 patients were classified into malnutrition group. Patients with malnutrition had lower levels of albumin and hemoglobin, but older age, higher lactate dehydroxygenase (LDH) level, higher frequencies of advanced stage, poor performance status, B symptoms and extranodal involvement, higher scores of NCCN-IPI and higher level of INF-gamma. Moreover, patients with malnutrition had poor overall survival in univariate analyses. But these significances did not stand after stratified analyses by NCCN-IPI, or in the context of NCCN-IPI in the multivariate analyses. CONCLUSIONS: GNRI is not an independent predictor for DLBCL patients.