Department of Radiation Oncology, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 7;9(1):1618. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-38282-z.
Serum neutrophil-to-lymphocytes ratio (NLR) is a potential predictive and prognostic marker in head and neck cancers. This study aimed to determine the role of pretreatment serum NLR in patients with hypopharyngeal cancer (HPC) treated with definitive chemoradiotherapy. We retrospectively investigated the correlation between clinicopathological parameters and NLR status and analysed its impact on therapeutic response and survival. A total of 120 patients treated at a single institution between 2009 and 2015 were included. The median follow-up time was 24.1 months. High NLR (NLR ≥ 4) was associated with advanced T classification (p = 0.01*) and advanced stage (p = 0.02*) based on chi-square test. We also found that high pretreatment NLR was correlated with poor treatment response (HR = 2.42, 95% CI: 1.08-5.44, p = 0.03*). Pretreatment NLR was also an independent prognostic factor for progression-free survival (HR = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.01-2.90, p = 0.046*) and overall survival (HR = 1.99, 95% CI: 1.21-3.28, p = 0.01*) while correcting for known prognostic factors. Overall, these findings support that NLR is a potential biomarker for host response to tumour aggressiveness, therapeutic response to chemoradiotherapy and survival in HPC patients. This study is limited by its retrospective nature and further validation is warranted.
中性粒细胞与淋巴细胞比值（NLR）是头颈部癌症潜在的预测和预后标志物。本研究旨在确定术前血清 NLR 在接受根治性放化疗的下咽癌（HPC）患者中的作用。我们回顾性研究了 NLR 状态与临床病理参数之间的相关性，并分析了其对治疗反应和生存的影响。共纳入 2009 年至 2015 年在一家机构治疗的 120 例患者。中位随访时间为 24.1 个月。基于卡方检验，高 NLR（NLR≥4）与晚期 T 分类（p=0.01*）和晚期分期（p=0.02*）相关。我们还发现，高术前 NLR 与治疗反应不良相关（HR=2.42，95%CI：1.08-5.44，p=0.03*）。术前 NLR 也是无进展生存期（HR=1.71，95%CI：1.01-2.90，p=0.046*）和总生存期（HR=1.99，95%CI：1.21-3.28，p=0.01*）的独立预后因素，在纠正已知的预后因素后。总体而言，这些发现支持 NLR 是宿主对肿瘤侵袭性反应、放化疗治疗反应和 HPC 患者生存的潜在生物标志物。本研究存在回顾性的局限性，需要进一步验证。
