title: Pretreatment Hematocrit Is Superior to Hemoglobin as a Prognostic Factor for Triple Negative Breast Cancer.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Anemia usually refers to low hemoglobin (Hb) levels. Previous studies indicated that anemia negatively influence the survival in various cancers. Hematocrit (HCT) is the volume percentage of red blood cells in blood, which could indicate anemia in both individuals and populations. This study compared the value of HCT with that of Hb for predicting outcomes of patients who underwent treatment for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective study of 293 triple negative breast cancer patients, accepting treatment from January 2004 to December 2009 at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, was conducted. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariate Cox proportional models were used to calculate disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The cut-off value of HCT was 35.9% determined by X-tile software analysis. The cut-off value of Hb was 12.0 g/dl based on the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. In univariate analysis, low HCT and low Hb were both significantly associated with decreased DFS and OS. In multivariate analysis, HCT (HR: 0.570; 95% CI: 0.331-0.981, P = 0.042 for DFS; HR: 0.456; 95% CI: 0.256-0.813, P = 0.008 for OS) was still identified as independent predictor of outcome, but not Hb.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pretreatment low HCT is independently associated with poor prognosis in TNBC patients. However, HCT was found to be superior to Hb in terms of predicting breast cancer mortality. In the future, large-scale prospective studies or validation studies are needed to verify our findings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Breast Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Breast Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Danian
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: Department of Breast Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Hailin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiotherapy, The First Affiliated Hospital, University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaohong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ai
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Medical College, University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan Province, China.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Affiliated Nanhua Hospital of University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan Province, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, Affiliated Nanhua Hospital of University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan Province, China.
authors.forename: Zhiyan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Breast Oncology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xie
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D006400:Hematocrit; D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D064726:Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006454:Hemoglobins