Purpose: As the incidence of oral cancers is on the rise, we aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) as a predictor of survival in patients with terminal oral cancer.
Methods: We evaluated the association between laboratory and PNI values and survival days in 33 patients who died of oral cancer between 2004 and 2019 ,excluding 4 patients who underwent gastric banding out of 39with gastric banding. The observation period was from the date of palliative care recommendation to the date of death.
Results: A significant difference was observed between the PNI values recorded 3 months before death and those recorded 1 month before death (37.99 ± 6.50 vs 28.86 ± 6.01; P<.05). The median PNI value was associated with the timing of supportive care start and survival (days).
Conclusion: This study revealed that PNI values decreased toward the end of life and correlated with survival (days), independent of patient characteristics. These findings suggest that the PNI may be useful in the prognostication of end-stage oral cancer.
Keywords: end-stage disease; oral cancer; prognostic nutritional index.