Prognostic value of preoperative glucose to lymphocyte ratio in patients with resected pancreatic cancer

Background Inflammatory factors and fasting blood glucose were verified to be associated with the prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The goal of this study is to confirm the prognostic role of preoperative blood glucose to lymphocyte ratio for patients with resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Methods A total of 259 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients were enrolled and randomly divided into training cohort and validation cohort. The training cohort was used to generate an optimal cutoff value and the validation cohort was used to further validate the model. Results A total of 259 patients were incorporated in this study and randomly divided into the training cohort (n = 130, 1/2 of 259) and the validation cohort (129, 1/2 of 259). The optimal cutoff value of glucose to lymphocyte ratio was calculated to be 3.47 for overall survival. Cox regression analysis found that preoperative blood glucose to lymphocyte ratio was independent risk factor (p = 0.040) for overall survival. Prognostic values of glucose to lymphocyte ratio on overall survival were observed in younger male patients with pancreatic body and tail cancer, American Joint Committee on Cancer 8th N1 stage, without microvascular and peripancreatic fat invasion, and Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 higher than 200 U/ml. A prognostic prediction model of overall survival was designed and presented in nomogram. Conclusion Preoperative blood glucose to lymphocyte ratio is an independent biomarker to predict the overall survival for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients who underwent curative resection.

Automated summary

Preoperative blood glucose to lymphocyte ratio serves as an independent biomarker for predicting overall survival in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma following curative resection, particularly showing prognostic value in specific patient subgroups.