Significance as a recurrence predictor of postoperative neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio in patients with stage II/III gastric cancer: A retrospective study.

Abstract

45 Background: Tumor markers such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CA 19-9 are both widely used in the follow up of patients with gastric cancer. However, there are no definitive predictive markers for postopetrative recurrence. It has been reported that preoperative neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was associated with prognosis of patients with gastrointestinal cancer. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of postoperative NLR on prediction for postoperative recurrence of gastric cancer. Methods: We retrospective reviewed data from 318 patients with Stage II/III gastric cancer who underwent curative surgical resection followed by adjuvant chemotherapy for between 2006 and 2013. Patients treated with preoperative chemotherapy or multiple cancers were excluded. Results: We found 118 recurrent diseases which mainly included 47 cases with peritoneal dissemination, 27 with distant lymph node metastasis and 24 with liver metastasis. Postoperative NLR was calculated every 6 months and the data at the time of recurrence or last survival were used for analysis. In univariate analysis, histological diffuse type, mascroscopical type 4 cancer, regional lymph node metastasis, lymphatic invasion in primary tumor, tumor diameter, elevated CEA or CA19-9, and elevated NLR were associated with poor prognosis. In multivariate analysis, we found that elevated CA19-9 and NLR were independent predictive markers. Increased NLR was associated with diffuse type, peritoneal dissemination, elevated CEA and preoperative NLR but not with adverse effect of adjuvant chemotherapy. Conclusions: The postoperative NLR might be one of the surrogate markers for recurrence after curative surgery for patients with Stage II/III gastric cancer.