Prognostic value of EBV DNA and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio in patients with non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a retrospective study

PURPOSE: Analyzing the prognostic value of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA load and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients, thereby developing a reliable and effective marker. METHODS: We compared survival rates among different groups using the Kaplan-Meier method and the Log-rank test. The factors affecting the prognosis of NPC patients were determined using univariate and multivariate cox regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to identify the cutoff-value and discriminant performance of the model. RESULTS: The ROC curve indicated a cut-off value of 775 copies/ml for EBV DNA and 203.3 for PLR. Kaplan-Meier and Log-rank tests showed that 3-year overall survival (OS), local recurrence-free survival (LRFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) of NPC patients in high risk group (HRG) were significantly poorer than those in medium risk group (MRG) and low risk group (LRG). The 3-year OS of NPC patients was significantly correlated with age, N stage and EBV DNA-PLR. The 3-year LRFS were significantly correlated with sex, N stage, histology type, and EBV DNA-PLR. The 3-year DMFS were correlated with histology type. The ROC curve showed that area under the curve (AUC) values of EBV DNA-PLR of 3-year OS, LRFS and DMFS in NPC were higher than those of PLR and EBV DNA. CONCLUSION: EBV DNA-PLR is an independent risk factor for the prognosis of NPC. Compared with PLR or EBV DNA alone, the combination of EBV DNA and PLR may be more accurate in predicting the prognosis of NPC patients.