Peripheral Inflammation Markers of Chemosensitivity to Induction Chemotherapy in Hypopharyngeal Cancer Patients

Background: Induction chemotherapy (ICT) has become an initial treatment for late-stage hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC); however, there are no data regarding ICT sensitivity for this population. Objective: This study investigated the predictive value of various inflammation markers for ICT responses in hypopharyngeal SCC. Methods: The data from 72 patients who received initial ICT treatment were obtained and associations between pretreatment inflammation markers and overall responses to ICT were calculated. Results: According to receiver operating characteristic curves, pretreatment lymphocyte count (PLC), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) achieved diagnostic accuracy for overall responses to ICT. These indicators were classified into two groups according to their cut-off values. Overall response rates were significantly higher in the low PLC (p < 0.01), high NLR (p = 0.035), and high PLR (p = 0.012) groups. Conclusion: Our results showed that low PLC, high NLR, and high PLR are predictors of positive responses to ICT in hypopharyngeal SCC patients.