ASO Author Reflections: Significant Impact of the Preoperative Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index and Monocyte-Lymphocyte Ratio on Survival Outcomes in Patients with Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma

Excerpt

Recently a growing number of retrospective articles reported preoperative inflammatory biomarkers, such as NLR (neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio)1, PLR (platelet-lymphocyte ratio)2, MLR (monocyte-lymphocyte ratio)3, and SII (systemic immune-inflammation index, neutrophils*platelets/lymphocytes)4 were associated with survival outcomes in several malignancies. Due to the rarity of upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) worldwide, there are insufficient data to illustrate whether these inflammation biomarkers have significant impacts on prognosis in UTUC patients after radical nephroureterectomy (RNU). However, the incidence of UTUC in Taiwan is the highest in the world. It is important to identify the prognostic factors from the known evidence and analyze the characteristics of UTUC in Taiwan. Therefore, our study explored whether the preoperative inflammatory biomarkers can be identified to stratify UTUC patients at high risk of poor survival rates. If so, the identification of preoperatively available prognostic factors may enable physicians to make accurate pretreatment assessments regarding clinically valuable options in UTUC, such as the need for neoadjuvant chemotherapy. …