Aim: Inflammation plays a critical role in many cancer features such as tumor development and
progression. Recently, the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been evaluated as a simple and valid
systematic marker of inflammatory response. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic
value of the preoperative neutrophil / lymphocyte ratio.
Material and Methods: In this study, archive files of 259 adult cases were evaluated retrospectively.
Kolmogorov Smirnov test, Mann Whitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis and Dunn multiple comparison tests
were used in the statistical analysis.
Results: A statistical correlation was found between the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio and T staging,
lymph node and distant metastases (p2.0906>1,644, the sensitivity to predict papillary
thyroid cancers larger than 1 cm, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis was found to be 85.4%,
73.8%, and 96% respectively.
Conclusion: Neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio is associated with tumor size and presence of metastasis.
The neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio may help us predict the size of the tumor, lymph node involvement, and
distant metastasis when the right cut-off points are established.