Neoadjuvant treatment is a widely accepted approach for locally advanced rectum cancer. Efforts to explore a surrogate endpoint for clinical trials revealed a new prognostic scoring system which is named… Click to show full abstract
Neoadjuvant treatment is a widely accepted approach for locally advanced rectum cancer. Efforts to explore a surrogate endpoint for clinical trials revealed a new prognostic scoring system which is named as neoadjuvant rectal score (NAR) in patients who received neoadjuvant treatment for rectal cancer. 88 patients who met inclusion criteria were included in the study. The optimal cutoff value of the NAR score was 17.6 with 71% sensitivity and 63% specificity. Patients with NAR score > 17.6 (n: 48, 54%) were defined as the high-risk group and those with NAR score ≤ 17.6 (n: 40, 56%) as the low-risk group. Survival analysis according to the NAR score group (low-risk vs high-risk) revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between groups regarding OS and DFS. The median OS for high-risk patients was 27.3 months (95% CI, 15.0–39.6); it was 76.6 months (47.3–106.0) for low-risk patients (p < 0.0001). The median DFS was 15.1 months (11.8–18.4) for high-risk patients; it was 44.3 months (95% CI, 4.1–84.6) in the low-risk group (p = 0.002). As a result, we interpreted our findings as supporting data about the utility of NAR score not only as a surrogate endpoint for the clinical trial of rectal cancer but also as a prognostic marker in patients with gastric cancer who received neoadjuvant treatment.