Preoperative Hypoalbuminemia is Associated With Higher 30-day Mortality and Complications After Esophagectomy.

Background: Serum albumin level is routinely screened during preoperative assessments as a biomarker for poor nutritional status and/or concurrent inflammation. In esophagectomy, while early postoperative hypoalbuminemia is associated with a higher risk of adverse surgical outcomes, the effects of preoperative hypoalbuminemia on esophagectomy outcomes were conflicting. This study aimed to examine the effect of preoperative hypoalbuminemia on 30-day outcomes following esophagectomy.

Methods: National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) esophagectomy targeted database from 2016 to 2022 was used. Patients with preoperative serum albumin <3.4 g/L were defined as having hypoalbuminemia. Patients with and without hypoalbuminemia were propensity-score matched (1:3 ratio) for demographics, baseline characteristics, neoadjuvant therapy, surgical approaches, tumor diagnosis, and pathologic staging of the malignancy. Thirty-day postoperative outcomes were examined.

Results: There were 803 (10.24%) and 7046 (89.76%) patients with and without preoperative hypoalbuminemia who underwent esophagectomy, respectively. After propensity-score matching, all patients with hypoalbuminemia were matched to 2170 controls. After propensity-matching, patients with hypoalbuminemia had higher risks of mortality (4.48% vs 3.00%, P = 0.04), sepsis (14.94% vs 10.92%, P < 0.01), and bleeding requiring transfusion (21.30% vs 13.50%, P < 0.01). Also, patients with hypoalbuminemia had a higher rate of discharge not to home (42.65% vs 34.81%, P < 0.01) and longer LOS (12.69 ± 9.09 vs 11.39 ± 8.16 days, P < 0.01).

Conclusion: Patients with preoperative hypoalbuminemia had increased risks of mortality and complications after esophagectomy. Thus, preoperative hypoalbuminemia could be a useful and cost-effective tool for preoperative risk stratification for patients undergoing esophagectomy, and correcting the underlying cause of hypoalbuminemia may help decrease the risk of adverse postoperative outcomes.