The Lymphocyte-Monocyte Ratio Predicts Patient Survival and Aggressiveness of Ovarian Cancer

Objective: To measure the prognostic value of the lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR) in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Methods: We retrospectively examined the LMR as a prognosticator in a cohort of 234 patients with EOC who underwent surgical resection. Patients were categorized into two different groups based on the LMR (LMR-low and LMR-high) using cut-off values determined by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The objective of the study was to assess the effect of the LMR on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS), and to validate the LMR as an independent predictor of survival. Results: Using the data collected from the whole cohort, the optimized LMR cut-off value selected on the ROC curve was 2.07 for both PFS and OS. The LMR-low and LMR-high groups included 48 (20.5%) and 186 patients (79.5%), respectively. The 5-year PFS rates in the LMR-low and LMR-high groups were 40.0 and 62.5% (P < 0.0001), respectively, and the 5-year OS rates in these two groups were 42.2 and 67.2% (P < 0.0001), respectively. On multivariate analysis, we identified age, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage, and cancer antigen 125 levels to be the strongest valuable prognostic factors affecting PFS (P = 0.0421, P = 0.0012, and P = 0.0313, respectively) and age, FIGO stage, and the LMR as the most valuable prognostic factors predicting OS (P = 0.0064, P = 0.0029, and P = 0.0293, respectively). Conclusion: The LMR is an independent prognostic factor affecting the survival of patients with EOC.