Aim:

Rectum cancer is a subtype of colorectal cancer. Its etiology and etiopathogenesis is similar to colon cancer. However, it is differentiated from colon tumors because of its anatomic location and treatment approach. In the literature, Mean Platelet Volume (MPV) has been shown to correlate with inflammation in gastrointestinal cancer patients. Based on this fact, we aimed to evaluate the MPV value for predicting prognosis of rectum cancer patients who are treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

Materials and Methods:

We retrospectively collected the data of 80 operated rectum adenocarcinoma patients who were treated neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy between 2011 and 2018. MPV value was investigated as prognostic factors for disease free survival.

Results:

Fifty-five patients were male (69%). Median age was 56 (range 22 to 83 years). The most common histopathologic was adenocarcinoma (94%). The ideal cut-off value of pretreatment MPV that predicted disease-free survival was 7.65 in the ROC analysis [AUC:0.74 (0.63-0.85); p<0.002] with a sensitivity of 81%, and specificity of 69 %. Median DFS was 43 months in patients with MPV <7.65 (95%CI: 35.5-54.6). In multivariate analysis, MPV was found to be an independent prognostic factor for disease free survival (p = 0.02).

Conclusion:

According to our study, we suggest that high levels of MPV at the time of diagnosis can be used as a predictive biomarker for early relapse in rectum cancer patients.

Keywords: Rectum cancer, Mean platelet volume, Disease free survival, Predictive marker