AUTHOR=Liu Qi , Yang Yufei , Li Xinxiang , Zhang Sheng 

TITLE=Implications of Habitual Alcohol Intake With the Prognostic Significance of Mean Corpuscular Volume in Stage II-III Colorectal Cancer

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2021.681406

DOI=10.3389/fonc.2021.681406

ISSN=2234-943X

ABSTRACT=Objective: To elucidate the prognostic significance of MCV, with implications of habitual alcohol intake in stage II-III Colorectal cancer (CRC).
Background: MCV had the potential to be an ideal prognostic biomarker and be put into clinical application. Few studies, however, had explored whether the habitual alcohol intake which greatly increased the value of MCV would affect the prognostic role of MCV. 
Methods: Eligible patients were identified from the CRC database of Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center (FUSCC) between January 2012 and December 2013. Survival analyses were constructed using the Kaplan–Meier method to evaluate the survival time distribution, and the log-rank test was used to determine the univariate survival differences. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were constructed to calculate the hazard ratios of prognostic factors.
Results: A total of 694 patients diagnosed with stage II-III CRC between January 2012 and December 2013 were identified from FUSCC. Low pretreatment MCV was independently associated with 72.0% increased risk of overall mortality compared with normal MCV (HR = 1.720, 95%CI =1.028-2.876, P =0.039, using normal MCV as the reference). In patients with habitual alcohol intake, however, pretreatment MCV positively correlated with the mortality (P = 0.02) and tumor recurrence (P = 0.002) after adjusting for other known prognostic factors.
Conclusions: In CRC patients without habitual alcohol intake, low (<80 fL) level of pretreatment MCV was a predictor of poor prognosis. In patients with habitual alcohol intake, however, pretreatment MCV showed the opposite prognostic role, which would elicit many fundamental studies to elucidate the mechanisms behind.