The impact of plasma fibrinogen levels on patients with vulvar cancer

Objective

To investigate the association between plasma fibrinogen levels and clinico-pathological parameters of patients with vulvar cancer and to determine their value as prognostic parameters.

Study design

In this retrospective study, we evaluated pretreatment plasma fibrinogen levels in 120 patients with invasive squamous cell vulvar cancer and correlated them with clinico-pathological parameters and patients’ survival.

Results

Pretreatment plasma fibrinogen levels were directly associated with tumor stage (pT1a vs. pT1b vs. pT2 vs. pT3-4, p = 0.001), lymph node involvement (pN0 vs. pN1, p = 0.04), and histological grade (G1 vs. G2 vs. G3, p = 0.03), but not with patients’ age (≤70 years vs. >70 years, p = 0.6). In a multivariate survival analysis, tumor stage (p = 0.006/p = 0.02) and lymph node involvement (p < 0.001/p < 0.001), but neither histological grade (p = 0.2/p = 0.9) nor plasma fibrinogen levels (p = 0.6/p = 0.6) were associated with disease-free and overall survival, respectively. In a multivariate analysis, patient's age (≤70 years vs. >70 years) was associated with overall survival (p = 0.03) but not with disease-free survival (p = 0.1).

Conclusion

Pretreatment plasma fibrinogen levels were directly associated with tumor stage, lymph node involvement and histological grade. Although we could demonstrate a prognostic value of pretreatment plasma fibrinogen levels on survival, we were unable to establish fibrinogen as an independent prognostic parameter in patients with vulvar cancer.