Cancer Management and Research (Oct 2018)
Prognostic role of derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in surgical triple-negative breast cancer
Abstract
Kuojun Ren,1,* Yachao Yin,2,* Fang He,3 Yi Shao,4 Shengying Wang1 1Department of Head–Neck and Breast Surgery, Anhui Provincial Cancer Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, USTC, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Radiotherapy, Anhui Provincial Cancer Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, USTC, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Respiratory Medicine, Anhui Chest Hospital, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Introduction: The role of derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (dNLR) in predicting the prognosis of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has not been well studied. Here, we attempted to investigate the significance of dNLR in predicting the prognosis of patients with surgical (nonmetastatic) TNBC.Methods: A total of 281 patients diagnosed with surgical TNBC in The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China from February 2005 to March 2015 were retrospectively included in this study. Kaplan–Meier curve analysis was used to assess the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). We used Cox regression model to assess the prognostic significance of pretreatment dNLR and other clinicopathological parameters in TNBC patients.Results: The median DFS in TNBC patients who had low dNLR and high dNLR was 28.9 and 15.1 months (P<0.001), respectively, whereas the median OS in patients who had low dNLR and high dNLR was 71.2 and 42.3 months (P<0.001), respectively. In patients aged ≤50 years and with invasive ductal carcinoma, a low dNLR predicted better DFS and OS compared with a high dNLR. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the increased dNLR was a risk factor of poor DFS (HR=1.90, 95% CI: 1.52–2.46, P=0.007) and OS (HR=2.56, 95% CI: 1.69–3.58, P=0.001).Conclusion: Pretreatment dNLR is an independent factor of prognosis for TNBC patients, which potentially allows clinical doctors to improve outcomes of patients with high dNLR by treating with aggressive therapy, such as high-dose adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Keywords: dNLR, TNBC, inflammation, immunity, prognosis
