Poor nutrition and sarcopenia are related to systemic inflammatory response in patients with rectal cancer undergoing preoperative chemoradiotherapy

Preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is the standard therapy for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). However, the changes that the patient’s physical status during CRT, such as host systemic inflammatory response, nutritional status, and muscle depletion, are still unclear. We evaluated the clinical significance of malnutrition and sarcopenia for patients with LARC undergoing CRT. Patients with LARC treated with CRT following radical surgery at our institution between 2006 and 2016 (N = 225) were retrospectively analyzed. A new prognostic score (PNSI) was devised based on the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) and the psoas muscle mass index (PMI): patients with malnutrition/sarcopenia were scored 2; patients with one and neither abnormality were scored 1 and 0, respectively. Neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, monocyte/lymphocyte ratio, and platelet/lymphocyte ratio increased, whereas PNI and PMI decreased after CRT. There were 130, 73, and 22 patients in the PNSI 0, 1, and 2 groups, respectively. Patients with higher PNSI had higher residual tumor size (p = 0.003), yT stage (p = 0.007), ypStage (p < 0.001), post-CRT platelet/lymphocyte ratio (p = 0.027), and post-CRT C-reactive protein/albumin ratio (p < 0.001). Post-CRT PNSI was associated with overall survival and was an independent poor prognosis factor (PNSI 1 to 0, hazard ratio 2.40, p = 0.034, PNSI 2 to 0, hazard ratio 2.66, p = 0.043) together with mesenteric lymph node metastasis, lateral lymph node metastasis, and histology. A combined score of post-CRT malnutrition/sarcopenia is promising for predicting overall survival in LARC.