NLR was shown to be better than dNLR in terms of predicting prognosis in patients with breast cancer. However, large prospective studies are required to further demonstrate the prognostic significance of these two values.

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the predictive value of neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) to better clarify which patient groups will benefit the most from particular treatments like bevacizumab. Materials and Methods: A total of 245 treatment-naive metastatic colorectal cancern (mCRC) patients were retrospectively enrolled and divided into 2 groups: 145 group A patients were treated with chemotherapy in combination with bevacizumab, and 100 group B patients were treated as above without bevacizumab. Results: Group A patients had better median overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) (24.0 and 9.0 months) than group B patients (20 and 6.0 months) (p=0.033; p=0.015). In patients with low NLR, OS and PFS were significantly longer in group A patients (27 vs 18 months, p=0.001; 11 vs 7 months, p=0.017). Conclusions: We conclude that NLR, a basal cancer related inflammation marker, is associated with the resistance to bevacizumabbased treatments in mCRC patients.

No abstract

No abstract

Endothelin-1 (ET-1) and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) play a major role in tumor growth and metastasis. Our aim was to determine whether there is any association between these endothelial parameters and tumor markers with the clinical outcome of bevacizumab-treated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients in terms of response and survival. Pretreatment serum levels of ET-1, ADMA, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 were measured in 36 chemotherapy-naive mCRC patients treated with first-line bevacizumab-based therapy. Additionally, after first cycle of treatment, serum levels of these parameters were reanalyzed. Lower baseline serum ET-1 and ADMA levels were observed in patients responding to bevacizumab-based treatment (respectively, p = 0.037, p = 0.034). Median progression-free survival (PFS) (11 vs. 6 months, p = 0.012) and overall survival (OS) (28 vs 9 months; p = 0.007) were significantly shorter in patients with high pretreatment ET-1 levels. There was a significant decrease in ET-1 and CEA levels after first treatment (p = 0.020, p = 0.012), while ADMA and CA 19-9 levels were not significantly changed. Patients with decreased posttreatment ET-1 levels were shown to have inferior PFS (6 vs 11 months, p = 0.022), but no statistically significant difference was shown with respect to OS (p = 0.141). The effect of bevacizumab on endothelin axis including the biologic basis of decreasing ET-1 levels due to bevacizumab treatment and its association with inferior outcome has to be clarified in prospective trials.