Background: To examine the predictive value of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in localized prostate cancer for surgical pathology and recurrence in patients treated by radical prostatectomy.
Methods: We evaluated 1258 patients treated by radical prostatectomy at San Raffaele Hospital between 2011 and 2017 and assessed the association between preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and surgical pathology (advanced stage, grade group ≥4, nodal involvement, grade discordance between biopsy and surgical pathology) and biochemical recurrence.
Results: The preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio was not significantly associated with advanced stage (≥T3), International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) grade (≥4) or discordance. At multivariable analysis, patients with higher neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio had lower risk of nodal involvement at final pathology (odds ratio [OR]: 0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.64, 0.92; P=0.005). The preoperative level of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio was associated with biochemical recurrence on univariate analysis (OR: 0.81, 95% CI: 0.68, 0.96; P=0.017). Such a relationship was not significant at multivariable analysis adjusting for tumor severity (OR: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.79, 1.09; P=0.4).
Conclusions: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio does not have clinical utility for the prediction of adverse pathology and biochemical recurrence. Further research should focus on its value for predicting regional lymph node metastasis.