Elevated preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with poor prognosis in gastrointestinal stromal tumor patients

PURPOSE To investigate the prognostic relevance of preoperative peripheral neutrophil- to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS We enrolled 129 consecutive GIST patients who underwent initial curative surgical resection with or without adjuvant/palliative imatinib treatment in our study. Blood NLR was calculated as neutrophil count (number of neutrophils ×10(9)/L) divided by lymphocyte count (number of lymphocytes ×10(9)/L). Survival curves were constructed by using the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression models were performed to identify associations with outcome variable. All tests were two-sided, and P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS The optimal cut-off value of NLR was 2.07 in the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. The median overall survival (OS) of high NLR group was 113.0 months, whereas that of the low NLR group had not reached the median OS both in the general (P<0.001) and subgroup analyses. The elevated NLR suggested shorter OS in the high malignant potential groups (P=0.01) and the combined low and moderate groups (P=0.02). Increased NLR indicated poor OS in patients regardless of whether if received imatinib treatment or not (P=0.005, and P=0.032, respectively). High NLR indicated poor OS of patients in stage I and II disease (P=0.005) and a clear tendency that increased level of NLR is inimical to OS. CONCLUSION Elevated NLR was detected as an independent adverse prognostic factor. Elevated preoperative NLR predicts poor clinical outcome in GIST patients and may serve as a cost-effective and broadly available independent prognostic biomarker.