ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Mechanics of inflammation and oncogenesis are intertwined with each other. Thus, the role of inflammatory markers like neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) as a foreteller of lung carcinoma is retrospectively appraised in this study. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Retrospective assessment of hospital records of carcinoma lung patients was done between January 2018 and January 2020 and pretreatment NLR was calculated. Median NLR was taken as cut off and thereafter correlation was studied between pretreatment NLR and overall survival, using Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Cox regression analysis was applied to identify factors affecting survival. RESULTS: Study population included 135 eligible patients with median age of 60 years and male to female ratio of 8.6:1. 47.41% patients were of stage III and 52.59% patients belonged to stage IV. The duration of follow-up ranged between 0.5 and 22 months. Median NLR was 3.1 (range, 0.90-11.25) and median overall survival in patients with NLR <3.1 and ≥3.1 was 6 months versus 3 months, respectively (P-value = 0.001). NLR value in nonsmall cell and small cell lung cancer was analyzed separately and showed significant variation in median survival in nonsmall cell lung cancer patients only (P-value = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Study results summarized that pretreatment NLR can be taken as a cheap and easily available predictor of prognosis in carcinoma lung cases and more so in nonsmall cell lung carcinoma cases. Large prospective trials are warranted to further potentiate this fact.
