Pretreatment platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as a predictor of pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer: single center experience from Turkey

The aim of this study was to investigate the predictive value of PLR and NLR as an indicator of pathological complete response (pCR) in patients with breast cancer after NACT. One hundred thirty-nine patients with early or LABC and candidates to NACT were retrospectively analyzed. The prognostic significance of PLR and NLR was analyzed. In addition, predictive indicators of pCR to NACT were also evaluated. pCR was obtained in 48.9% of patients. Significant difference was detected between pCR and PLR, tumor grade, clinical lymph node status and molecular subgroup. The higher rate of pCR was significantly achieved for patients with PLRlow (<181.7) compared with those with PLRhigh (>181.7) (68.6% vs. 33.4%; P < 0.001). PLR, tumor grade and pCR to NACT for disease-free survival (DFS), and PLR, NLR, tumor grade and pCR to NACT for overall survival were detected to be prognostic factors by univariate analysis. On the other hand, a logistic regression analysis indicated that PLR and NLR were found to be an independent factors for predicting pCR to NACT (P < 0.001; OR, 0.07; 95% CI, 0.02-0.25 and P = 0.016; OR, 4.66; 95% CI, 1.33-16.2, respectively), as were molecular subtypes (P = 0.001; OR, 0.23; 95% CI, 0.09-0.56). Our results showed that PLRlow and NLRlow before NACT are readily feasible and simple and also inexpensive biomarkers predicting pCR to NACT for patients with LABC.

Automated summary

This study investigated the predictive value of PLR and NLR as indicators of pCR in breast cancer patients after NACT. The results showed that PLR and NLR are independent factors for predicting pCR to NACT, and they have a good correlation.