Predictive value of hematological markers of systemic inflammation for managing cervical cancer

The neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and red cell distribution width (RDW) are markers of systemic inflammation with prognostic significance for cancers. The aim of the study was to investigate the predictive significance of pretreatment values of NLR, PLR, and RDW in cervical cancer. We retrospectively analyzed 515 patients with cancer. Median values of NLR and PLR were higher in patients with cancer compared with controls and were consistently elevated during tumor progression, while the RDW was uninformative. Increased NLR was associated with lymph node (LN) metastasis and depth of stromal infiltration, and increased PLR correlated only with LN metastasis. The pretreatment NLR or PLR value was a significant predictor of LN metastasis, which enhanced when NLR and PLR values were combined. Further, NLR and PLR were as effective as squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) for predicting distant tumor metastasis. However, no prognostic significance of NLR or PLR was found in the patients with early cancer stages. Our study suggested that pretreatment values of NLR and PLR might be helpful to predict the presence of distant and LN metastasis in patients with cervical carcinoma, but not adequate prognostic factors for early stage patients.