Abstract:
Objective To investigate the relationship between serum total bilirubin (TBIL) and the clinicopathological characteristics and inflammatory cells of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, and to explore the significance of serum TBIL in guiding the treatment of NSCLC patients and its prognostic value.
Methods A retrospective analysis of 332 patients with NSCLC who attended Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from March 2017 to December 2020, with clinical data collected and followed up by telephone and outpatient follow-up, was performed using Logistic regression analysis for univariate analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival curve for survival analysis.
Results The serum TBIL levels of NSCLC patients differed in genders, with males being higher than females (P<0.05), but there were no significant differences among ages, smoking and the duration of disease (P>0.05); in addition, serum TBIL was differentially expressed by degree of lymphatic infiltration, whether or not distant metastasis was present, and TNM stage (P<0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that TBIL, albumin and glutamate aminotransferase levels had a significant effect on prognosis of the disease (P<0.05); female patients had a better prognosis when their TBIL levels were greater than 9.85 μmol/L when compared with those with TBIL ≤9.85 μmol/L, but there was no correlation between TBIL levels and disease-free survival in male patients (P>0.05). Patients were assigned into high or low level groups according to TBIL levels. The percentage of lymphocytes in male patients was highly expressed in the high level group and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) values were low in the high level group; The percentage of lymphocytes in female patients was highly expressed in the high level group, but the NLR values and CD3, CD4 cell proportions were low in the high level group (P<0.05).
Conclusions The expression level of serum TBIL was higher in NSCLC patients with early-stage than in patients with progressive stage, which is expected to be a basis for guiding the treatment of NSCLC; there may be synergistic effect between TBIL and neutrophils and NLR, which together play an anti-tumor role in immune regulation of lung cancer.