ABSTRACT
Objective To assess the effect of neutrophil?to?lymphocyte ratio ( NLR) on the recurrence rate of patients with alpha?fetoprotein (AFP) ?negative hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the value of NLR in predicting prognosis. Methods The clinical data of seventy?seven patients diagnosed with AFP?negative HCC and treated with hepatocellular carcinoma surgery in the First Hospital in Weinan from June 2015 to March 2017 were analyzed. According to the recurrence at the end of the follow?up, the patients were divided into the recurrence group and the non?recurrence group. Cox single factor analysis was used to analyze the relationship between the clinicopathological features and postoperative recurrence, and the clinical risk factors with statistically significance in the univariate analysis were placed in the Cox multivariate regression analysis to determine whether it is independent risk factor. Results The differences between the two groups in the number of tumors (31/15,28/3),tumor size (>5 cm) (5. 53±1. 83,4. 65±1. 73),portal vein tumor thrombus (18/28,2/29),microvascular invasion (14/32,2/29) were all statistically significant (P5 cm ) ( RR=0. 550, 95%CI 0. 316-0. 956, P=0. 038),portal vein tumor thrombus (RR=1. 294,95%CI 1. 208-1. 386,P=0. 022),microvascular invasion (RR=1. 575,95%CI1. 209-2. 052,P=0. 028) were the risk factors of postoperative recurrence. Cox regression model showed that tumor number (RR=1. 830,95%CI 1. 184-2. 828,P=0. 026),portal vein tumor thrombus ( RR=2. 860,95%CI 2. 062-3. 968,P=0. 001) ,microvascular invasion ( RR=1. 760,95%CI 1. 019-3. 041,P=0. 037) and preoperative NLR level ( RR=1. 890,95%CI 1. 056-3. 383,P=0. 028) were independent risk factors of the recurrence in AFP negative HCC patients after surgery. Among the 77 patients,46 cases were in the recurrent group, the average value of NLR was 3. 49 ± 0. 30, and the average preoperative NLR of the non?recurrence group ( 31 patients ) were 3. 01 ± 0. 30, the difference between the two groups in NLR value was statistically significant (t=-6. 885,P=0. 000). According to the ROC curve,the NLR=3. 17 corresponded to the maximum Youden index,the sensitivity of NLR was 82. 6%,the specificity was 67. 7%. Conclusion The preoperative NLR level is inversely proportional to the recurrence?free survival time of patients with AFP?negative HCC,which is one of the independent risk factors for recurrence. The optimal critical value of NLR is 3. 17.