Effect of peripheral blood neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio before radical radiotherapy on overall survival of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma / 肿瘤研究与临床

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the effect of peripheral blood neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) before radical radiotherapy on overall survival (OS) of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.Methods:The clinical data of 359 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma from March 2011 to January 2017 in Shanxi Provincial Cancer Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. The gender, age, smoking index, Karnofsky score, lesion site, lesion length, tumor length, TNM stage, concurrent chemoradiotherapy, NLR, etc., were observed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn according to patients' NLR to find the optimal cut-off value, the patients were divided into the low NLR group and the high NLR group, and the OS of the two groups was analyzed. Univariate log-rank test and multivariate Cox analysis were used to determine the factors affecting the OS of patients.Results:The area under the curve (AUC) of NLR for predicting OS was 0.576, the best cut-off value for OS prediction was 2.103 6, and the sensitivity and specificity were 60.8% and 55.2%, respectively. According to the best cut-off value of peripheral blood NLR 2.103 6, the 359 patients were divided into the low NLR group (NLR < 2.103 6, 156 cases, 43.5%) and high NLR group (NLR ≥ 2.103 6, 203 cases, 56.5%). There were statistical differences in gender ( χ2 = 8.960, P = 0.003) and lesion length ( χ2 = 12.948, P = 0.002) between low NLR group and high NLR group. Univariate analysis showed that the lesion length, NLR, N stage, M stage and total TNM clinical stage were influencing factors affecting OS of patients (all P < 0.05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the lesion length ( HR = 1.456, 95% CI 1.215-1.745, P < 0.01), NLR ( HR = 1.313, 95% CI 1.020-1.690, P = 0.035) and N stage ( HR = 1.768, 95% CI 1.391-2.248, P < 0.01) were independent influencing factors affecting OS of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma before radical radiotherapy. Conclusions:Peripheral blood NLR is an independent influencing factor affecting OS of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients before radical radiotherapy. NLR has important reference value for predicting the OS of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after radical radiotherapy.