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BMC Cancer
Published in: BMC Cancer 1/2018

Open Access 01-12-2018 | Research article

Predictive value of lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio in the preoperative setting for progression of patients with breast cancer

Authors: Wataru Goto, Shinichiro Kashiwagi, Yuka Asano, Koji Takada, Katsuyuki Takahashi, Takaharu Hatano, Tsutomu Takashima, Shuhei Tomita, Hisashi Motomura, Kosei Hirakawa, Masaichi Ohira

Published in: BMC Cancer | Issue 1/2018

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Abstract

Background

The lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) has been used as a parameter reflecting systemic inflammation in several tumors, and is reportedly associated with prognosis in cancer patients. In this study, we evaluated the predictive value of LMR for progression and chemosensitivity in breast cancer patients treated with preoperative chemotherapy.

Methods

LMR was evaluated in 239 patients with breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) with 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide, followed by weekly paclitaxel with or without trastuzumab, and subsequent curative surgery. The correlations between LMR and clinicopathological features, prognosis, and pathological complete response (pCR) rate of NAC were evaluated retrospectively. We also evaluated the predictive value of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and compared the predictive values of LMR and NLR.

Results

We set 6.00 as the cut-off level for LMR based on the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. A total of 119 patients (49.8%) were classified in the high-LMR group and 120 (50.2%) were classified in the low-LMR group. The low-LMR group had significantly worse disease-free survival rate (DFS) in all patients (p = 0.005) and in triple-negative breast cancer patients (p = 0.006). However, there was no significant correlation between LMR and pCR. Multivariate analysis showed that low LMR was an independent risk factor for DFS (p = 0.008, hazard ratio = 2.245). However, there was no significant difference in DFS (p = 0.143, log-rank) between patients in the low- and high-NLR groups.

Conclusions

LMR may be a useful prognostic marker in patients with breast cancer.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Predictive value of lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio in the preoperative setting for progression of patients with breast cancer
Authors
Wataru Goto
Shinichiro Kashiwagi
Yuka Asano
Koji Takada
Katsuyuki Takahashi
Takaharu Hatano
Tsutomu Takashima
Shuhei Tomita
Hisashi Motomura
Kosei Hirakawa
Masaichi Ohira
Publication date
01-12-2018
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Cancer / Issue 1/2018
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2407
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-018-5051-9

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