Abstract
Purpose: Increasing evidence indicates that the neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio (NLR) broadly reflects systemic inflammatory and immune responses and may be a useful biomarker to predict outcomes for some solid cancers. However, the association between NLR and breast cancer prognosis remains unclear. We investigated the relationship between NLR and disease outcomes, i.e., metastatic capacity, recurrence free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS), in patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Methods: We reviewed the medical records of patients with stage I-III TNBC who underwent surgery at our institution between 2005 and 2015. The NLR cut-off value of 2.2 was selected according to receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Lymph node metastasis status, RFS and OS were evaluated. Differences were considered significant for p < 0.05. Results: Of 36 patients, 14 were assigned to the high NLR group (NLR ≥ 2.2) and 22 to the low NLR group (NLR < 2.2). The values for lymph node involvement and NLR revealed significant positive correlations. A median follow-up of 5.3 years revealed that the high NLR group had a significantly poorer RFS (66% vs 90% at 5 years, p = 0.02). The high NLR group had a worse tendency for OS at 5 years (82% vs 95% for the low NLR group, p = 0.23). Conclusion: High NLR reflects extensive lymph node metastasis and poor prognosis in patients with TNBC.
