Blood preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is correlated with TNM stage in patients with papillary thyroid cancer

Blood preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is correlated with TNM stage in patients with papillary thyroid cancer

Clinics, June 2016

27438563

Wenjie Gong, Shenjiu Yang, Xiumin Yang, Fang Guo

To predict the American Joint Cancer Committee tumor-node-metastasis stage in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma by evaluating the relationship between the preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and the tumor-node-metastasis stage. We retrospectively examined 161 patients with a diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma. The Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio was calculated according to the absolute neutrophil counts and absolute lymphocyte counts on routine blood tests obtained prior to surgery and patients with a Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio of 2.0 or more were classified as the high NLR group, while those with a Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio less than 2.0 were classified as the low Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio group. Clinicopathological variables, which were stratified by the Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio, were analyzed. A multivariate analysis was performed to determine factors that affect the Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio. The association between the Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and the TNM stage in patients ≥45 years of age was analyzed using the Spearman rank correlation. Various blood indices, including hemoglobin, platelet and thyroid-stimulating hormone levels in the two groups showed no significant differences. Lymph node metastasis, multifocality and tumor size exhibited significant differences in the two groups (p=0.000, p=0.000 and p=0.035, respectively). Correlation analysis indicated that a higher preoperative Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio was observed in patients with lymph node metastasis, larger tumor size and multifocality (r=0.341, p=0.000; r=0.271, p=0.000; and r=0.182, p=0.010, respectively). For patients ≥45 years of age, the number of patients with an advanced TNM stage in the high NLR group was higher than that in the low Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio group (p=0.013). A linear regression analysis showed that the preoperative Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio was positively correlated with the American Joint Cancer Committee tumor-node-metastasis stage (rho=0.403, p=0.000). The preoperative Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio was closely related to the stage of papillary thyroid carcinoma. The increase in the preoperative Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio contributed to the advanced tumor-node-metastasis stage of papillary thyroid carcinoma patients ≥45 years of age.