Elevated baseline circulating platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and survival in initial stage Ⅳ gastric cancer patients: A meta-analysis

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 17; no. 4; p. e0265897
• Main Authors: Hu, Guoming, Wang, Shimin, Wang, Songxiang, Huang, Liming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 01.01.2022; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Biology and Life Sciences; Biomarkers; Blood platelets; Blood Platelets - pathology; Cancer; Cell survival; Chemotherapy; Clinical outcomes; Gastric cancer; Humans; Inflammation; Inflammatory response; Lymphocytes; Lymphocytes - pathology; Medical prognosis; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Meta-analysis; Metastases; Metastasis; Neutrophils - pathology; Patients; Physical Sciences; Platelets; Prognosis; Research and Analysis Methods; Sensitivity analysis; Stomach cancer; Stomach Neoplasms - pathology; Survival; Thyroid gland; Thyroidectomy; Tumors; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265897

Systemic inflammatory response (SIR) plays important roles in initiation, promotion and progression of tumor. However, the prognostic role of baseline circulating platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) (known as a marker of SIR) in human initial stage Ⅳ gastric cancer (GC) remains controversial. Hence, we performed this meta-analysis to assess the value of it in prognosis prediction for these patients. We searched PubMed, Embase and EBSCO to identify the studies and computed extracted data with STATA 12.0. A total of 3025 patients with initial stage Ⅳ GC from 13 published studies were incorporated into this meta-analysis. We found that elevated baseline circulating PLR was significantly associated with decreased overall survival (OS), but not with progression-free survival (PFS) in stage Ⅳ GC patients. However, in stratified analyses, high PLR was only associated with worse 1-year and 2-year OS, but not with 3-year or 4-year OS; In addition, it was considerably related with reduced 6-month PFS, but not with 1-year or 2-year PFS. Moreover, high PLR markedly correlated with peritoneal metastasis of GC. Elevated baseline circulating PLR decreased 1-year OS and 6-month PFS in initial stage Ⅳ GC patients, implicating that it is a valuable prognostic index for these patients and modifying the inflammatory responses may have a potential for effective treatment.