Pre-treatment neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio is a predictor of prognosis in endometrial cancer

Abstract

Background/aim: Inflammation and tumor immunology are important in the prognosis of various cancers. We herein investigated whether pre-treatment neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and serum cancer antigen 125 (CA125) predict recurrence and survival in patients with endometrial cancer (EC).

Patients and methods: We collected complete blood counts and clinicopathological data from medical records of 320 patients with EC; their pre-treatment NLR, PLR and CA125 were analyzed for correlations with recurrence and survival, retrospectively.

Results: Disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) rates of patients with high NLR and CA125 were significantly shorter than those for patients with low NLR and CA125 (DFS: p=0.002 and p<0.001; OS: p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). Furthermore, NLR was also an independent predictive factor for mortality in multivariate analysis (hazard ratio (HR)=3.318; 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.154-9.538; p=0.026).

Conclusion: Pre-treatment NLR is a predictor of poor prognosis in EC.

Keywords: Endometrial cancer; neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio; prognosis.