RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Malnutrition and systemic inflammatory response have been confirmed to be important risk factors for various cancers. OBJECTIVE: To compare pretreatment prognostic nutrition index (PNI) among patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), laryngeal precancerous lesion (LPL) and laryngeal benign lesion (LBL). METHODS: A total of 253 male patients with laryngeal lesions were divided into LBL, LPL with low risk (LPL (l)), LPL with high risk (LPL(h)), LSCC (i), LSCC (ii) and LSCC (iii) groups according to their histopathological findings and the TNM staging system. PNI and other clinical parameters were calculated. Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U or Chi-square or Fisher's exact test were used for comparison of different parameters among groups. Logistic regression was performed to estimate the odds ratios (OR) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: The PNI in the LSCC group was significantly lower than those of the LBL and LPL groups (p = .013 and p = .004, respectively), and decreased from LPL(l) to LSCC (iii) (from 53.97 ± 3.69 to 50.02 ± 4.75). LPL patients with lower PNI values had a higher risk of LSCC, the OR was 0.91 (95% CI: 0.84, 0.97) for a one-unit decrease. CONCLUSIONS: PNI could be a simple and reproducible marker for predicting the severity of laryngeal diseases.