Absolute Lymphocyte Count, Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio, and Overall Survival in Eribulin-treated HER2-negative Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients.

BACKGROUND/AIM: To investigate the utility of peripheral blood biomarkers - absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) - for predicting outcomes in eribulin-treated patients with metastatic human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2)-negative breast cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

ALC, NLR, and PLR were retrospectively obtained from pre-treatment blood sampling results of 120 patients and stratified according to means. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to investigate the association of clinicopathological factors, including these values, with overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS).

RESULTS

The ALC, NLR, and PLR cut-off points were 1,285/μl, 3.3, and 235, respectively. No biomarkers were associated with PFS. However, univariate analysis showed ALC (p=0.044) and PLR (p=0.044) to be significantly associated with OS.

CONCLUSION

ALC and PLR can predict eribulin efficacy in terms of OS, reflecting the antitumour immune response in the microenvironment and indicating eribulin's effectiveness.