The systemic inflammatory response predicts overall and cancer specific survival in patients with malignant lymphoma

Backround: The value of C-reactive protein concentrations in the assessment of prognosis in patients with advanced lymphoma has not been clearly defined. Material/Methods: Patients with a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (n=108) and Hodgkin's lymphoma, (n=39) and who had measurements of Creactive protein were studied retrospectively and the data was reviewed over 8 years. Results: Median survival, from the time of sampling, was 7.4 months On univariate analysis there was significant relationship between the duration of cancer specific survival and tumour type (p<0.05), circulating concentrations of albumin (p<0.001) and C-reacfive protein (p<0.001). In contrast, only C-reactive protein concentration was a predictor of death from intercurrent disease (p<0.05). On inultivariate analysis, C-reactive protein concentration remained a strong independent predictor of both death from cancer and intercurrent disease (p<0.001). The hazard ratio associated with a unit increase in stratified C-reactive protein concentration was 8.18 (95% CI 4.80-13.95) for cancer specific death and 2.11 (95% CI 1.22-3.64) for intercurrent death. Conclusions: The results of the present study demonstrate that patients with advanced lymphoma have evidence of a systemic inflammatory response and the magnitude of the C-reactive protein response predicts the duration of overall and cancer specific survival.