A new inflammation index is useful for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

[esophageal squamous cell carcinoma]

The prognostic value of inflammation indexes in esophageal cancer has not been established . Recent studies have shown that the advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI ) is a useful predictive factor . The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the ALI is useful for predicting long -term survival in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC ).A total of 293 patients who had undergone esophagectomy for ESCC were included . The ALI was calculated as body mass index × serum albumin /neutrophil-to -lymphocyte ratio . Then , patients were divided into two groups : ALI ≥18 and ALI <18 . The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the cancer -specific survival (CSS ), and the difference was assessed by the log-rank test . Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the prognostic factors .In our study , there were 120 patients with ALI <18 and 173 patients with ALI ≥18 . ALI was significantly higher in patients with large tumors (P =0 .028 ), poor differentiation (P =0 .010 ), deep invasion (P =0 .009 ), and nodal metastasis (P =0 .004 ). The 5 -year CSS was 34 .5 % in our study . Patients with ALI <18 had a significantly poorer 5 -year CSS compared to ALI ≥18 (21 .7 % versus 43 .4 %, P <0 .001 ). On multivariate analysis , we showed that the ALI was a significant predictive factor of CSS (P =0 .024 ).The ALI is still a useful predictive factor for long -term CSS in patients with ESCC . However , the prognostic value of the ALI is yet to be formally tested within randomized trials .