Background

The systemic inflammatory response may be associated with tumor progression. We sought to analyze the impact of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) on recurrence-free survival (RFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) among patients who underwent surgery for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC).

Methods

Patients undergoing surgery for ACC were identified from a multi-center database. Cut-off values of 5 and 190 were defined as elevated NLR and PLR, respectively, and long-term outcome was assessed.

Results

Among 84 patients with ACC, 29 (34.%) had NLR > 5 while 32 (40.5%) had PLR > 190. NLR and PLR were associated with larger tumors (NLR > 5: ≤ 5 cm, 0% vs. >5 cm, 39.7%; PLR > 190: ≤ 5cm, 0% vs. >5 cm, 45.7%), as well as need to resect of other organs (NLR > 5: other organ resected 48.8% vs. not resected 20.9%; PLR > 190: other organ resected 25.0% vs. not resected 56.4%)(all P < 0.05). Five-year RFS was associated with an elevated NLR (NLR ≤ 5, 14.2% vs. NLR> 5, 10.5%) and PLR (PLR ≤ 190: 19.4% vs. PLR > 190: 5.2%) (both P < 0.05). On multivariate survival analyses, PLR remained a predictor of RFS (HR 1.72), while NLR was associated with both DSS (HR 2.21) and RFS (HR 1.99) (both P < 0.05).

Conclusions

Immune markers such as NLR and PLR may be useful to stratify patients with regards to prognosis following surgery for ACC.