AIMS: To investigate the potential prognostic impact of the lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR) in a large European cohort of patients with localised upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC).
The LMR as an indicator of systemic inflammatory response has been shown to represent a potential prognostic factor in various types of human cancers. Up to date, the prognostic significance of the LMR in UTUC has not been evaluated.
METHODS: Clinico-pathological data from 182 non-metastatic patients with UTUC, operated between 1990 and 2012 at a single tertiary academic centre, were evaluated retrospectively. Pretreatment LMR was assessed 1 day before surgery. Patients were categorised using an LMR cut-off value of 2.0 according to a calculation by receiver-operating curve analysis. Patients' overall survival (OS) was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method. To evaluate the independent prognostic significance of the LMR, a multivariate proportional Cox regression model was applied for OS.
RESULTS: In multivariate analyses, age on the date of surgery (< 65 vs ≥65 years, HR=2.10, 95% CI 1.22 to 3.64), pathological T-stage (pT1 vs pT2-4, HR=2.15, 95% CI 1.26 to 3.67), as well as the LMR (< 2 vs ≥2, HR=0.56, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.92) were independent predictors of OS of patients with UTUC.
CONCLUSIONS: In the cohort studied, patients with an elevated (≥2) preoperative LMR had a subsequently longer OS after radical surgery for UTUC, compared with those with a low (< 2) preoperative LMR. Thus, we believe this parameter might be considered an additional prognostic factor in UTUC in the future.
Written by:
Hutterer GC, Sobolev N, Ehrlich GC, Gutschi T, Stojakovic T, Mannweiler S, Pummer K, Zigeuner R, Pichler M, Dalpiaz O. Are you the author?
Department of Urology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria; Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria; Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria; Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria; Department of Experimental Therapeutics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
Reference: J Clin Pathol. 2015 Feb 6. pii: jclinpath-2014-202658.
doi: 10.1136/jclinpath-2014-202658
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 25661796