Postoperative ratio of the maximum C-reactive protein level to the minimum peripheral lymphocyte count as a prognostic indicator for gastric cancer patients.

PURPOSE

Inflammation, together with immune and nutritional status, are associated with the progression of various cancer types. We evaluated the prognostic significance of the postoperative ratio (post-CLR) of the maximum C-reactive protein value (post-CRP) to the minimum peripheral lymphocyte count (post-LC) in patients with gastric cancer (GC).

METHODS

The subjects of this retrospective study were 227 patients who underwent curative surgery for histopathologically diagnosed gastric adenocarcinoma.

RESULTS

The 5-year overall survival (OS) rates differed significantly between the post-CLR (≥ 152.6) group and the post-CLR (< 152.6) group for all patients (45.0% vs. 68.4%, respectively; P < 0.001). The 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS) rates were also significantly related to post-CLR for all patients, (80.6% vs. 64.3% for the post-CLR and the post-CLR groups, respectively; P = 0.002). Among patients without infectious complications, the CLR affected both the 5-year OS rate (48.4% vs. 69.2% for the post-CLR and the post-CLR groups, respectively; P = 0.006) and the 5-year DSS rate (80.2% vs. 67.0% for the post-CLR and the post-CLR groups, respectively; P = 0.027). Multivariate analysis revealed that post-CLR was an independent prognostic indicator for both the OS and DSS of all patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Our finding show that the post-CLR can help predict the prognosis of GC patients.