Comment on “Survival outcome of pulmonary metastasectomy among the patients with colorectal cancers”

Dear Editor,

We read with interest the article entitled “Survival outcomes of lung metastases resection in colorectal cancer patients” by Yildiz et al.¹, who summarized prognostic factors after lung metastases resection in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. We agree with the gist of this review and would like to share some thoughts after careful review and further analysis of this article.

First, we consider this topic to be of practical significance. CRC ranks third in the global ranking of cancer deaths, with more than 1.85 million cases and 850,000 deaths annually. Among newly diagnosed rectal cancer patients, 20% had metastatic disease at presentation, and another 25% developed metastases after localized disease². Therefore, the more accurate diagnostic criteria for CRC are urgently needed in clinical practice. The research findings of Yildiz et al.¹ provide a new biological marker for the prognosis of clinical colon cancer.

We note that the authors included 607 patients with mCRC at the Adana Dr Turgut Noyan Research and Treatment Centre at Baskent University School of Medicine when selecting the sample, and after rigorous screening, only 33 patients met the study criteria. However, the authors did not give detailed sample information, such as the patient's daily diet, drinking water³, and liver condition. As the daily diet and drinking water will have a greater impact on the serum albumin concentration, errors may occur while determining the albumin concentration. Liver disease⁴ can cause a series of complications and body's inflammatory response, resulting in fluctuations in the albumin concentration. Therefore, we recommend the authors to supplement the corresponding information of the samples.

In general, this review provides a valuable clinical reference for the treatment of CRC and helps clinicians understand new prognostic biomarkers for CRC. It clarifies the clinical significance of the combination of lymphocyte count and albumin concentration. However, we believe that it is important to include patient's details, such as daily diet, water intake, and liver condition, and we recommend that these should be displayed in the study in order to enhance the convincing and scientific results.

• Funding: none.

REFERENCES

• ¹
  Yıldız O, Dae SA, Fındıkcıoglu A, Kose F. Survival outcome of pulmonary metastasectomy among the patients with colorectal cancers. Rev Assoc Med Bras (1992). 2021;67(7):1015-20. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.20210472
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.20210472
• ²
  Biller LH, Schrag D. Diagnosis and treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer: a review. JAMA. 2021;325(7):669-85. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.0106
  » https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.0106
• ³
  Shrimanker I, Bhattarai S. Electrolytes. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022.
• ⁴
  Caraceni P, Tufoni M, Zaccherini G, Riggio O, Angeli P, Alessandria C, et al. On-treatment serum albumin level can guide long-term treatment in patients with cirrhosis and uncomplicated ascites. J Hepatol. 2021;74(2):340-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2020.08.021
  » https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2020.08.021

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 Nov 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  09 July 2022
• Accepted
  09 July 2022