Prognostic significance of the red blood cell distribution width in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients.

// Shujuan Zhou 1 , Fang Fang 1 , Huiyao Chen 1 , Wei Zhang 1 , Yang Chen 1 , Yifen Shi 1 , Zhouyi Zheng 2 , Yongyong Ma 1 , Liyuan Tang 1 , Jianhua Feng 1 , Yu Zhang 1 , Lan Sun 1 , Yi Chen 1 , Bin Liang 1 , Kang Yu 1 and Songfu Jiang 1 1 Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, P.R. China 2 Department of Hematology and oncology, Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital of Zhuji, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, P.R. China Correspondence to: Songfu Jiang, email: 20442947@qq.com Kang Yu, email: yukang@163.com Keywords: diffuse large B cell lymphoma, red blood cell distribution width, prognosis, survival Received: November 30, 2016     Accepted: March 09, 2017     Published: March 25, 2017 ABSTRACT This study examined the prognostic value of the baseline red blood cell distribution width (RDW) in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients. The associations between RDW and clinical characteristics were assessed in 161 DLBCL patients from 2005 to 2016. The log-rank test, univariate analysis, and Cox regression analysis were used to evaluate the relationship between RDW and survival. A RDW of 14.1% was considered to be the optimal cut-off value for predicting prognosis. A high RDW was associated with more frequent B symptoms ( P =0.001), a higher International Prognostic Index score ( P =0.032), more extranodal sites of disease ( P =0.035), and significantly lower Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status ( P =0.031). The log-rank test demonstrated that patients with a high RDW had a shorter overall survival (OS) (2-year OS rate, 53.6% vs . 83.6%, P <0.001) and progression-free survival (PFS) (2-year PFS rate, 44.7% vs . 81.8%, P <0.001). The multivariate analysis demonstrated that RDW ≥14.1% was an independent predictor of OS (odds ratio [OR] = 0.345, P <0.001) and PFS (OR = 0.393, P =0.001). We demonstrated that a high RDW predicted an unfavorable prognosis in patients with DLBCL.