Can Serum Albumin Level At Diagnosis Be A Guide for Clinical Features, Time to Treatment, and Response in Patients with Follicular Lymphoma?

Aim: The aim of the present study was to determine the association between serum albumin level and treatment demand, time to treatment and treatment response in patients with follicular lymphoma (FL). Materials and Methods: We retrospectively evaluated the data of 25 FL patients. The data comprised gender, age, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level, number of nodal sites, presence of extranodal involvement, B symptoms and bulky mass, presence of bone marrow, liver and spleen involvement, Follicular Lymphoma International Prognostic Index score, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance score, tumor grade, albumin level, globulin level, white blood cell count, platelet count and hemoglobin level at diagnosis; treatment demand, time to treatment, and response to treatment. Results: The median age of the patients was 53 years. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to the median albumin level as >4.4 gr/dL and <4.4 gr/dL. While 13 (52%) patients had an albumin level of ≤4.4 gr/dL, 12 (48%) patients had an albumin level of >4.4 gr/dL. Two groups were comparable in terms of treatment demand, time to treatment and treatment response in patients who were applied treatment (p>0.05). No correlation was found between the level of serum albumin and the need for treatment in patients with FL. Conclusion: FL, constituting approximately 20% of all non-hodgkin lymphomas, is the second most common lymphoma in adults. The age, LDH and hemoglobin levels, ECOG performance score, stage, extranodal, involvement, number of nodal sites involved, b2 microglobulin level, bone marrow involvement, presence of B symptoms and bulky mass are the conventional risk factors used to determine prognosis in FL. Although we found that treatment requirement was higher and time to treatment was shorter in patients with low serum albumin levels, they did not reach a statistical significance.