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(HealthDay News) — There is a direct correlation between the pretreatment serum uric acid (SUA) level and tumor progression in patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), according to a study published online Dec. 20 in Head & Neck.
Xiao-Jing Du, M.D., from the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues retrospectively examined data from 1,063 patients with locally advanced NPC to determine the predictive value of pretreatment SUA.
The researchers found that high pretreatment SUA level (>353.4 µmol/L) independently predicted distant metastasis-free survival (P = 0.013). High pretreatment SUA also was associated with high white blood cell counts (P = 0.005), lymphocyte counts (P < 0.001), and male sex (P < 0.001). SUA levels were significantly elevated in patients with T1 to T3 classification (P = 0.042). Markedly higher pretreatment SUA levels were detected for patients with subsequent lung metastases after treatment versus patients who had other distant metastases (P = 0.012) and patients without distant metastasis (P = 0.024).
“Pretreatment SUA may be a useful biomarker for evaluating treatment options for patients with locally advanced NPC,” the authors write.
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