Abstract

INTRODUCTION

There are various factors that have been determined to affect recurrence and survival in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, few of them exhibit so high a prognostic marker. The present study aimed to investigate the potential of neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and mean platelet volume (MPV) as prognostic markers in patients with CRC.

METHODS

We retrospectively examined the demographic and clinical data of 336 patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma in 2008-2014, which recurred after a 12-month follow-up period; the patients had non-metastatic cancer at the time of diagnosis. In order to find out NLR, PLR, and MPV cut-off values, ROC curve analysis was used.

RESULTS

Patients were categorized into two groups according to positive relapse and negative relapse. 89 patients (26.5%) experienced a relapse in the follow-up period. The group NLR≤3.39 had 55.5 months of disease-free survival (p<0.0001) while the group NLR>3.39 had 82.8 months (p<0.0001). The group PLR≤183 had 57.8 months, the group PLR>183 had 78.7 months (p=0.016); the group MPV≤8.3 had 59.7 months, the group MPV>8.3 had 87.2 months; the group MPV>8.3 had 87.2 months and the group MPV<8.3 had 59.7 months (p=0.057).

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Our study demonstrated that NLR, PLR and MPV levels can actually be relied on as a prognostic factor in patients with CRC. MPV, NLR and PLR values displayed by recently diagnosed patients with CRC may be a reflection of an increased cytokine level and thereby change depending on it.