International Journal of Clinical Oncology   2016 年 21 卷 2 期

2016.04.01

Background: The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is associated with clinical outcomes of various cancers. This study aimed to evaluate whether pretreatment NLR can be used as a prognostic factor in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) receiving targeted therapy. Methods: In this single-center retrospective study, the Kaplan??“Meier method was used to estimate progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of 373 mRCC patients receiving targeted therapy. The survival outcomes of patients with high (?‰?2.2) and low (<2.2) pretreatment NLRs were compared by log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to compare OS and PFS between groups. Results: The overall median PFS and OS times for all 373 patients were 18.4 and 34.3??months, respectively. Patients with high NLRs had significantly shorter median OS (28.8 vs 410??months, P??=??0.005) and PFS (15.4 vs 23.9??months, P??=??0.001) than those with low NLRs. After adjusting for confounding variables, each unit increase of NLR was associated with a 40??% increase in mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.391; 95??% confidence interval [CI] 1.022??“1.894; P??=??0.036). High NLR was also an independent predictor of poor PFS (HR 1.544; 95??% CI 1.166??“2.045; P??=??0.002). Conclusion: Pretreatment NLR may be an independent prognostic factor for mRCC patients who are receiving targeted therapy.