Clinical significance of preoperative neutrophil-lymphocyte vs platelet-lymphocyte ratio in primary operable patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Our aim was to determinate the prognostic value of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in primary operable patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODS: Six hundred seventy-eight NSCLC patients were enrolled in this study. The prognostic significance of both markers was determined by both univariate and multivariate Cox survival analysis. The cut-off value for NLR and PLR was selected by using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.

RESULTS: Multivariate analysis showed that NLR was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival (hazard ratio = 1.593, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.277 to 1.988, P < .001) and overall survival (hazard ratio = 1.624, 95% CI 1.304 to 2.022, P < .001). The area under the curve was .640 (95% CI .599 to .682, P < .001) for NLR and .547 (95% CI .503 to .590, P = .036) for PLR, indicating that NLR was superior to PLR as a predictive factor in primary operable NSCLC patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative NLR represents a significant independent prognostic indicator in primary operable NSCLC patients. Our results also demonstrate that high-risk patients based on the NLR do not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.