Abstract:
Objective: To evaluate the predictive value of pretreatment platelet-to-lymphocyte ratios (PLRs) in response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and prognostic outcome in patients with International Federation of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO) Stages IB2-IIB cervical cancer.
Methods: An investigation was conducted from January 2010 to December 2012 on 75 patients with FIGO Stages IB2–IIB cervical cancer, who underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radical surgery in Changhai Hospital, Shanghai. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine the best PLR cut-off value in predicting the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The relationships between the pretreatment variables and the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy were assessed in univariate and multivariate settings. The overall three-year survival rates were analyzed using the log-rank test and Cox regression model.
Results: The response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy was associated with PLR. At the threshold of 123.0, the PLR was 88.5% sensitive and 52.2% specific. Multivariate analysis showed that the low independent PLR predicted the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy well. Based on the log-rank test, the three-year survival rate was lower in patients with PLR >123.0 than those with PLR < 123.0(59.8% vs. 82.4%), but no statistically significant differences were observed between them (
P=0.116). Mono-factorial analysis showed that vascular invasion (a tumor that is >4 cm in diameter) and lymph node metastasis influenced the three-year survival rate. In the Cox regression model, only the lymph node metastasis was identified as an independent risk factor for poor prognosis (RR: 5.375; 95% CI:1.351-21.379;
P=0.017).
Conclusion: Pretreatment PLR is an easily measured, reproducible, and inexpensive marker of systemic inflammation and thus shows a prognostic and independent predictive value for the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in cervical cancer. However, pretreatment PLR is not a clinically significant factor for the assessment of cervical cancer prognosis.