The prognostic value of neutrophil to lymphocyte and platelet to lymphocyte ratios for patients with lung cancer

Abstract

As the leading cause of cancer-associated mortality globally among males in 2012, lung cancer is a disease of particular concern. Previously, the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were revealed to be prognostic factors for various types of cancer, including lung cancer. In the present study, a retrospective review was conducted with patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2005 in the Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University. A total of 695 patients were included, and the optimal cutoffs of the NLR and the PLR were 6.0 and 248.0, respectively. There were statistically significant associations between tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, surgery, metastasis incidence and NLR (P<0.001). The associations between TNM stage, surgery incidence and PLR were also revealed to be statistically significant (P<0.001). Patients in the low NLR group demonstrated longer overall survival (OS) than patients in the high NLR group (819.57 days vs. 629.86 days, P=0.041). The NLR at diagnosis was demonstrated to be an independent prognostic factor for OS. Thus, the NLR may be a promising approach for predicting the prognosis of patients with lung cancer.

Prognostic Roles of Inflammatory Markers in Pancreatic Cancer: Comparison between the Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio

“…The prognosis is better in patients with lower tumor stage than in those with higher stage [ 45 ]. In other types of cancer, a lower tumor stage was associated with lower NLR levels [ 46 , 47 ]. In our study, the subgroup with low tumor stages (I-II) showed higher rate of high NLR than the subgroup with high tumor stages (III-IV) (0.656 versus 0.373).…”

Prognostic value of the fibrinogen/albumin ratio (FAR) in patients with operable soft tissue sarcoma

“…Several studies have shown that NLR and PLR were independent prognostic factors in cancer patients [ 26 , 27 ]. However, there are also some studies showing that NLR and PLR were ineffective in predicting the prognosis [ 28 – 30 ], indicating the prognostic role of NLR and PLR in cancer still need further investigation. They may should be assessed together with other markers due to the confounding factors regulating by inflammatory conditions.…”

The clinicopathological and prognostic value of the pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in small cell lung cancer: A meta-analysis

“…According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, after reviewing duplicates and screening the titles or abstracts, 59 research articles were evaluated. Finally, 20 eligible studies were included [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], with 21 outcomes. The flow chart for the study is shown in Fig 1.…”