The Predictive Role of Inflammatory Biomarkers for Treatment Response and Progression-Free Survival in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma Receiving Hepatic Arterial Infusion Chemotherapy with FOLFOX Regimen: A Preliminary Study

OBJECTIVE: This retrospective study aimed to investigate whether pre-treatment inflammatory biomarkers, including the prognostic nutritional index (PNI), monocyte-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), systemic immune inflammation index (SII), and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), could predict treatment response and prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) receiving hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) with the oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and fluorouracil (FOLFOX) regimen. METHODS: Based on the cut-off values identified using the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve, 124 patients with HCC who received HAIC with the FOLFOX regimen were divided into low- and high-score MLR, PLR, PNI, and SII groups. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed to identify independent predictors of treatment response and progression-free survival (PFS). RESULTS: The cut-off values were 0.569 for MLR (area under the curve [AUC]: 0.621), 177.01 for PLR (AUC: 0.554), 713.05 for SII (AUC: 0.570), and 46.85 for PNI (AUC: 0.665). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that the modified albumin-bilirubin (mALBI) grade (hazard ratio [HR]: 2.027; P=0.032), high MLR (HR: 7.250; P=0.002), and low PNI (HR: 0.296; P=0.003) were independent predictors of HAIC non-response, with an AUC value of 0.746 (95% CI: 0.658–0.833). A high MLR (HR: 1.714, 95% CI: 1.086–2.704, P=0.021) was also an independent predictor of PFS. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that the patients with a high MLR had shorter PFS than those with a low MLR (median PFS: 6 vs 10 months, P=0.011). CONCLUSION: The pre-treatment MLR and PNI were predictors of non-response in patients with HCC receiving HAIC with the FOLFOX regimen. The MLR also was an independent predictor of PFS.