Absolute Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte Ratio Research Articles

Pretreatment Absolute Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) Predict the Risk for Febrile Neutropenia in the First Cycle Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer

Background: Chemotherapy-induced febrile neutropenia (FN) is a condition affecting mortality and morbidity. The records show that absolute neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is associated with the cancer prognosis and reflects the immune response system on the infection. It can be used as an independent prognostic biomarker and predictive marker in patients with chronic inflammatory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, or malignancies. Therefore, we have been conducted on using absolute NLR to predict FN in a patient with breast cancer who has adjuvant chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: The authors retrospectively evaluated the pretreatment absolute NLR of patients with early stage breast cancer who had adjuvant chemotherapy. Then, the relationship to FN was analyzed by using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 339 patients where 21 patients had developed FN (6.19%). The multivariate logistic regression analysis results indicated that the pretreatment absolute NLR cut-off point equal to or greater than 2.4 was a significant independent predictive biomarker of the chemotherapy-induced FN (odds ratio = 2.810, 95%,; CI 1.061 - 7.442; p = 0.038). The predictive performance of the high level of absolute NLR was an acceptable discrimination [AUC= 0.7626 (95% and CI 0.650 - 0.875)]. Furthermore, a calibration curve and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test to assess the accuracy of the predictive model showed a goodness of fit for a logistic predictive model (Hosmer-Lemeshow chi2 = 2.50; p = 0.645). Conclusions: Pretreatment absolute NLR would be a useful predictive biomarker for febrile neutropenia after the first cycle of adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer that would be simple and easy to integrate in daily practice without extra costs.

Value of Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio and Its Trajectory in Patients Hospitalized With Acute Heart Failure and Preserved Ejection Fraction

The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been proposed as a simple and routinely obtained marker of inflammation. This study sought to determine whether the NLR on admission as well as NLR trajectory would be complementary to the Get with the Guidelines Heart Failure (GWTG-HF) risk score in patients hospitalized with acute heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).Using the Stanford Translational Research Database, we identified 443 patients between January 2002 and December 2013 hospitalized with acute HFpEF and with complete data of NLR both on admission and at discharge. The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality. Mean age was 77 ± 16 years, 58% were female, with a high prevalence of diabetes mellitus (35.4%), coronary artery disease (58.2%), systemic hypertension (96.6%) and history of atrial fibrillation (57.5%). Over a median follow-up of 2.2 years, 121 (27.3%) patients died. The median NLR on admission was 6.5 (IQR 3.6 - 11.1); a majority of patients decreased their NLR during the course of hospitalization. On multivariable Cox modeling, both NLR on admission (HR 1.18 95% CI (1.00 - .38), p = 0.04) and absolute NLR trajectory (HR 1.26 95% CI (1.10 - 1.45), p = 0.001) were shown to be incremental to GWTG-HF risk score (p < 0.05) for outcome prediction. Adding the NLR or absolute NLR trajectory to the GWTG-HF risk score significantly improved the area under the operator-receiver curve and the reclassification up to 3 years after admission.This simple, readily available marker of inflammation may be useful when stratifying the risk of patients hospitalized with HFpEF.