Prognostic importance of the nutritional status and systemic inflammatory response in non-small cell lung cancer.

PURPOSE: Despite all primary prevention and therapeutic efforts around the world, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) continues to be an important public health problem. In the treatment of patients, laboratory parameters can be used for the determination of treatment intensity. These laboratory parameters should be easily accessible, cheap and easy to use. For this purpose, the prognostic importance in NSCLC of serum albumin levels, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and thrombocyte-lymphocyte ratio (TLR) was investigated in the present study.

METHODS: Serum albumin levels and body mass index (BMI) were used to determine the nutritional status and NLR and TLR were used to determine the systemic inflammatory response (SIR).

RESULTS: While median survival was 9.1 months in hypoalbuminemic patients, it was 16.4 months in normoalbuminemic patients (p=0.002). The relationship of positive or negative NLR as an indicator of SIR with median survival was statistically significant (p=0.006). While median survival was 7.8 months for patients with NLR ≥5, it was 14.7 for the patients with NLR <5 (p=0.006). TLR as a SIR indicator was not connected with median survival (p=0.072).

CONCLUSION: Serum albumin, indicating the nutritional status and the NLR as an indicator of SIR, are significantly related with prognosis in locally advanced and metastatic NSCLC. Serum albumin measurement and calculation of NLR are easily accessible, cheap and easy to use laboratory methods. We consider that serum albumin levels and NLR can be utilized in the treatment planning of NSCLC patients.