Background: Renal cell carcinoma is the third most common cancer after prostate and bladder tumors in urological malignancies. Recently, because of the widespread use of ultrasound and computed tomography, incidental and early stage renal tumors have been encountered more frequently.
Aim: In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic efficacy of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio for the diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma in patients who underwent nephrectomy operation.
Materials and methods: The patients who underwent open surgery nephrectomy for the last eleven years were reviewed retrospectively. Patients diagnosed with other carcinomas (transitional cell carcinomas and other carcinomas) and had no complete blood count were excluded from the study. The patients were divided into two groups; Group 1 included the patients with benign renal tumor and chronic pyelonephritis, patients with renal cell carcinoma were in Group 2.
Results: There were 256 patients and 250 patients were in group 1 and 2. The median age of the patients and neutrophil lymphocyte ratio in the groups was 55 and 59 years and 1.97 and 2.35 respectively. There was statistically significant difference between the groups for age and neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (p<0.0001). The leukocyte values of the patients were calculated as 7600 and 8155 in groups, respectively and no significant difference was detected between the groups (0.1172).
Conclusion: Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio is an easily accessible parameter which is used for prognosis in renal cell carcinoma. In this study, we found that neutro-phil lymphocyte ratio can be one of the diagnostic parameters for renal cell carcinoma in preoperative period.
Keywords: neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; pyelonephritis; renal cell cancer.