As hypoalbuminemia is a risk factor of severe hematological toxicity occurring in anticancer chemotherapy,we examined serum albumin levels in outpatients receiving several different chemotherapy regimens.The data of 4215 samples collected from 946 outpatients receiving anticancer chemotherapy were investigated.Mean (±SD) serum albumin was 3.8±0.4 g/dL with levels in the 2.0-2.9 g/dL,3.0-3.9 g/dL and 4.0-4.9 g/dL accounting for 2.5%,56.6% and 40.9% of the total number of samples,respectively.Serum albumin levels differed by disease and chemotherapy regimen.The mean albumin levels for each chemotherapy regimen were significantly directly correlated with hematocrit (rs=0.752,p<0.01),BMI (rs=0.581,p=0.02)and inversely correlated with age (rs=-0.578,p=0.02).The frequencies of hypoalbuminemia were higher in patients with gastric,pancreatic and esophageal cancer than in patients with breast and colorectal cancer (70.5-91.4% vs.20.3 -63.1%) since the former were older and had a lower BMI.These data suggests that the risk for a severe hematological toxicity and an alteration of pharmacokinetics in highly protein-bound anticancer agents increase in patients with gastric,pancreatic and esophageal cancer.
