Prognostic Significance of Preoperative Lymphocyte-Monocyte Ratio in Patients with Resectable Esophageal SCC

Esophageal carcinoma (EC) ranked the eighth most common cancer and the sixth leading cause of cancerrelated death all around the world. In east Asia, especially in China, Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the predominant histological type of EC, affecting more than 100 cases per 100,000 population annually (Pennathur et al.). Despite multidisciplinary treatment for ESCC, surgical resection remains the primary treatment for non-metastatic disease. Unfortunately, even after potentially curative surgery, the 5-year survival rate is only 26.2% to 49.4%, mainly due to local or distant recurrences (Liu et al., 2012). Therefore, it is imperative to identify novel prognostic markers that will improve clinical outcome through identifying ESCC patients with high risk of tumor recurrence and poor prognosis. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that there is a causal relationship between inflammation, innate immunity and cancer. Cancer-related inflammation affects many aspects of the neoplastic process by promoting or restraining progression, angiogenesis and metastasis, suppressing