Abstract:
Objective To compare the immunological factors of peripheral blood and other clinical characteristics between newly diagnosed nasopharyngeal cancer patients, with and without distant metastasis, and to establish a risk assessment model for early identification of patients with distant metastasis.
Methods The clinical data and pretreatment peripheral blood immunological indices of 231 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, diagnosed between January 2019 and June 2021 at Sichuan Cancer Hospital & Institute, were retrospectively analyzed. Factors associated with distant metastasis were analyzed using univariate and multivariate Logistic regression. Independent correlates of distant metastasis were identified, and the corresponding nomogram models were generated. Internal validation was then performed.
Results Among the 231 patients enrolled, a total of 48 patients (20.8%) were clinically diagnosed with distant metastasis. Multifactorial regression analysis showed that N stage, prognostic nutritional index (PNI), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level, CD4/CD8 ratio, and absolute number of NK cells were independent correlates of distant metastasis. The risk assessment model was constructed accordingly. Using the bootstrap resampling method for 1, 000 internal validations, the concordance index (C-index) and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) values of the model were both 0.826. The calibration curve was well fitted, and the predicted probability and the actual probability had a good degree of agreement. The clinical decision curve (DCA) and clinical impact curve (CIC) further indicated that the model has relatively stable clinical applicability.
Conclusions Patients with primary distant metastases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma had significant immunological changes in the peripheral blood. Combining the CD4/8 ratio, NK cell count, and several other clinical indicators could help in distinguishing metastatic and non-metastatic patients. The prediction model established may be useful for the screening of patients with early and occult metastasis to enable early intervention.