Preoperative glucose-to-lymphocyte ratio predicts survival in cancer

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2024 Mar 4:15:1284152. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2024.1284152. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Background: Systemic inflammation and glucose metabolism have been closely related to the survival of cancer patients. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate whether preoperative glucose-to-lymphocyte ratio (GLR) can be used to predict the survival of cancer patients.

Methods: We retrospectively examined 2172 cancer patients who underwent surgery from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2016. There were 240 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), 378 patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), 221 patients with breast cancer (BC), 335 patients with gastric cancer (GC), 270 patients with liver cancer, 233 patients with esophageal cancer (EC), 295 patients with renal cancer, and 200 patients with melanoma. The formula for preoperative GLR calculation was as follows: GLR=glucose/lymphocyte count. The overall survival (OS) was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The predictive factors for OS were determined using multivariate analysis.

Results: The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that the median survival time in the high-GLR group was much shorter than that of those in the low-GLR group for different cancers. Cox multivariate regression analysis reveals that preoperative GLR was an independent factor for predicting overall survival in different tumor types.

Conclusion: Elevated preoperative GLR was remarkably associated with a poorer prognosis in patients with NSCLC, CRC, breast cancer, gastric cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer, esophageal cancer, and melanoma. Preoperative GLR promises to be an essential predictor of survival for cancer patients.

Keywords: cancer; glucose to lymphocyte ratio; lung cancer; prognosis; survival.

MeSH terms

  • Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung*
  • Esophageal Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Glucose
  • Humans
  • Liver Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Lung Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Lymphocytes / pathology
  • Melanoma*
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Stomach Neoplasms* / diagnosis
  • Stomach Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Stomach Neoplasms* / surgery

Substances

  • Glucose

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study did not receive any specific funding from public, commercial or non-profit sector funding agencies. None of the authors have any financial and relevant financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations to disclosure in this paper.