Association between red blood cell distribution width and long-term mortality among patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention with previous history of cancer.

Background: The number of patients suffering from coronary heart disease with cancer is rising. There is scarce evidence concerning the biomarkers related to prognosis among patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with cancer. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between red blood cell distribution width (RDW) and prognosis in this population. Methods: A total of 172 patients undergoing PCI with previous history of cancer were enrolled in this retrospective study. The endpoint was long-term all-cause mortality. According to tertiles of RDW, the patients were classified into three groups: Tertile 1 (RDW <12.8%), Tertile 2 (RDW >= 12.8% and <13.5%) and Tertile 3 (RDW >= 13.5%). Results: During an average follow-up period of 33.3 months, 29 deaths occurred. Compared with Tertile 3, mortality of Tertile 1 and Tertile 2 was significantly lower in the Kaplan-Meier analysis. In multivariate Cox regression analysis, RDW remained an independent risk factor of mortality (HR: 1.938, 95% CI: 1.295-2.655, p < 0.001). The all-cause mortality in Tertile 3 was significantly higher than that in Tertile 1 (HR: 5.766; 95% CI: 1.426-23.310, p = 0.014). Conclusions: An elevated RDW level (>= 13.5%) was associated with long-term all-cause mortality among patients undergoing PCI with previous history of cancer.