Background: The advanced lung cancer inflammation index (ALI) has been related to tumor survival in lung cancer (LC) patients. However, these findings regarding the prognostic relevance of ALI in LC were inconsistent. Our study is aimed at characterizing the prognostic significance of low pretreatment ALI in LC cases. Methods. Relevant published studies were systematically searched in several online databases. The combined hazard ratios (HRs) were applied to assess the correlation between ALI and overall/recurrence-free/progression-free survival (OS/PFS/RFS) in LC.
Results: A total of 1587 LC patients from eight articles were recruited. Pooled results indicated that pretreatment ALI was significantly associated with prognosis in cases with LC. Compared to those with high-ALI, LC cases in the low-ALI group had a poorer OS (HR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.34-1.93, p < 0.001). Subgroup analyses further revealed the negative significant prognostic value of low ALI in LC. In addition, low ALI had obvious connection with inferior PFS/RFS (HR: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.35-2.07, p < 0.001) in LC patients.
Conclusions: Low ALI before treatments indicates poor prognosis in LC patients. Serum ALI may serve as a promising predictive tumor marker of survival in LC sufferers.