Prognostic Relevance of Pretreatment Peripheral Neutrophil Count and Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte Ratio in Primary Cutaneous Angiosarcoma

Abstract

Systemic inflammatory response markers, including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio, are useful prognostic factors for various malignant tumours. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical relevance of these markers in primary cutaneous angiosarcoma. Twenty-six patients were retrospectively divided into 2 groups according to pretreatment peri­pheral blood cell counts or systemic inflammatory response marker levels; overall survival and progression-free survival were compared. Univariate analysis found that high neutrophil count (> 3.1×109/l), high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (> 2.4), high platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (> 175) and low lymphocyte count (≤ 1.3×109/l) were related to shorter overall survival, while high neutrophil and low lymphocyte groups had shorter progression-free survival. In multivariate analysis, high neutrophil count and high neutrophil-to- lymphocyte ratio (hazard ratio 7.44 and 5.04, 95% confidence interval 1.48–37.2 and 1.26–20.1, respectiv­ely) were identified as independent prognostic factors for poor overall survival. These results indicate that systemic inflammatory response markers serve as prognostic predictors in primary cutaneous angiosarcoma, as well as in other types of soft-tissue sarcoma.

Keywords

• cutaneous angiosarcoma
• systemic inflammatory response
• neutrophil, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio
• prognostic factor
• overall survival