In Filipino patients, the LENT score appears to be an effective prognostic tool for patients with malignant pleural effusion (MPE), a recent study presented at the 2017 Congress of Asian Pacific Society of Respirology (APSR 2017) has shown.

“High risk patients have lower survival rates with a median survival time of 1.58 months,” researchers noted, adding that low-risk patients, in comparison, benefit from longer median survival times of 6.9 months.

Researchers conducted a review of the medical records of 88 patients (63.6 percent female) with MPE admitted to the Chinese General Hospital and Medical Centre in the Philippines. LENT risk stratification scores were calculated for each patient.

Median survival times, calculated from the time of MPE diagnosis to death, were recorded for each LENT risk category. The predictive ability of LENT was assessed using area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) analysis, and other factors affecting overall survival were identified using Cox hazard regression analysis.

Lung cancer was the most commonly identified malignancy that was accompanied by MPE, diagnosed in 44.3 percent of the study sample. This was followed by breast (25.0 percent) and gastrointestinal (10.2 percent) cancers. [APSR 2017, abstract AP259]

After risk stratification, very few patients were identified to be low-risk, with LENT scores from 0 to 1 (3.4 percent). Majority of the sample had scores from 2 to 4 and were designated as moderate-risk patients (60 percent); 37.5 percent were high-risk, with scores from 5 to 7.

The median survival times for moderate- and high-risk MPE patients were 6.09 (95 percent CI, 4.97 to 7.22) and 1.58 (1.07 to 2.08) months, respectively. The overall average survival time was 4.60 months.

In Cox regression analysis, age (p=0.049), tumour type (p<0.001), Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status score (p<0.001), tumour risk category (p=0.001) and serum neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (p<0.001) were identified as factors that indirectly affected patient survival.

As the first validated risk stratification tool in MPE cases, LENT prognostic scores help doctors plan potential treatments and predict patient survival, researchers explained. The findings of the current study show that the LENT score is applicable and accurate in Filipino patients in a real-world tertiary hospital setting.