Prognostic performance of inflammation-based prognostic indices in patients with resectable colorectal liver metastases

A range of prognostic cellular indices of the systemic inflammatory response, namely the neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived NLR (dNLR), platelet–lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte–monocyte ratio (LMR), combination of platelet count and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (COP–NLR) and prognostic nutritional index (PNI), have been developed and found to have prognostic utility across varied malignancies. The current study is the first to examine the prognostic value of these six inflammatory scores in patients with resectable colorectal liver metastases (CRLM). Data from 302 consecutive patients undergoing surgery for resectable CRLM were evaluated. The prognostic influence of clinicopathological variables and the inflammatory scores NLR, dNLR, PLR, LMR, COP–NLR and PNI upon overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were determined by log-rank analysis and univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. High preoperative NLR was the only inflammatory variable independently associated with shortened OS (HR 1.769, 95 % CI 1.302–2.403, P < 0.001) or CSS (HR 1.927, 95 % CI 1.398–2.655, P < 0.001) following metastasectomy. When NLR was replaced by dNLR in analyses, high dNLR was independently associated with shortened OS (HR 1.932, 95 % CI 1.356–2.754, P < 0.001) and CSS (HR 1.807, 95 % CI 1.209–2.702, P = 0.004). The inflammatory scores PLR, LMR, COP–NLR and PNI demonstrated no independent association with either overall or cancer-specific survival in the study population. Our findings support high preoperative NLR and dNLR as independent prognostic factors for poor outcome in patients undergoing CRLM resection, with prognostic value superior to other cellular-based systemic inflammatory scores.