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Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio acts as a prognostic factor for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma

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Tumor Biology

An Erratum to this article was published on 21 July 2016

Abstract

Few studies investigated the prognosis of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (aHCC). This study was aimed to determine the prognostic value of differential blood cell counts including blood white cells, neutrophil, lymphocyte, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and platelet in patients with aHCC. A total of 205 ethnic Chinese aHCC patients receiving non-systematic sorafenib were analyzed retrospectively. The prognostic value of differential blood cell counts and NLR for overall survival (OS) was determined by integration into Cancer of the Liver Italian Program (CLIP) score system using backward elimination model of multivariate Cox regression. As a result, NLR was confirmed to be an independent predictor for OS (p = 0.001) with the rest parameters presented negative results. Then, aHCC patients were dichotomized into two groups according to NLR values ≤2.43 or >2.43. Patients with low NLR presented lower CLIP score and higher 6-month survival rate (56.1 vs 25.9 %) compared with patients with high NLR level. Besides, low NLR level was associated with favorable prognostic factors such as lower α-fetoprotein, alkaline phosphatase, and total bilirubin, as well as decreased incidence of ascites, portal vein thrombosis, and metastasis. Besides, low NLR level was associated less white cells and neutrophil granulocytes, as well as more lymphocyte. In summary, the present study firstly indentified NLR as an independent prognostic factor in aHCC patients receiving no systematic sorafenib.

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Conflict of interest

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Financial support

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81372374), the Combination Project of Production, Education and Research from Guangdong Province and Ministry of Education (No. 2012B091100460), and the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province 2011B031800076 (to Q. Lin), 2011B031800014 (to M. Dong) and 2012B031800259 (to J. Wen)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, 600 Tianhe Road, Guangzhou, 510630, People’s Republic of China

    Xing Li, Zhan-Hong Chen, Xiao-Kun Ma, Jie Chen, Dong-Hao Wu, Qu Lin, Min Dong, Li Wei, Tian-Tian Wang, Dan-Yun Ruan, Ze-Xiao Lin, Xiang-Yuan Wu & Jin-Yun Wen

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, 1017 Dongmenbei Road, Shenzhen, 518020, People’s Republic of China

    Xing Li, Zhan-Hong Chen, Xiao-Kun Ma, Jie Chen, Dong-Hao Wu, Qu Lin, Min Dong, Li Wei, Tian-Tian Wang, Dan-Yun Ruan, Ze-Xiao Lin, Yan-Fang Xing, Yun Deng, Xiang-Yuan Wu & Jin-Yun Wen

  3. Department of Nephrology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, 63 Duobao Road, Guangzhou, 510150, People’s Republic of China

    Yan-Fang Xing

  4. Department of Radiation Oncology, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, 52 Meihua Dong Road, Zhuhai, People’s Republic of China

    Yun Deng

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  1. Xing Li
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  2. Zhan-Hong Chen
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  3. Xiao-Kun Ma
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  4. Jie Chen
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  5. Dong-Hao Wu
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  6. Qu Lin
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  7. Min Dong
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  8. Li Wei
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  9. Tian-Tian Wang
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  10. Dan-Yun Ruan
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  11. Ze-Xiao Lin
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  12. Yan-Fang Xing
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  13. Yun Deng
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  14. Xiang-Yuan Wu
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  15. Jin-Yun Wen
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiang-Yuan Wu or Jin-Yun Wen.

Additional information

Xing Li, Zhan-Hong Chen, Yan-Fang Xing and Xiao-Kun Ma contributed equally to this work.

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Li, X., Chen, ZH., Ma, XK. et al. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio acts as a prognostic factor for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Tumor Biol. 35, 11057–11063 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-014-2360-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13277-014-2360-8

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