Predictive Ability of Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio in Determining Tumor Staging in Colorectal Cancer

Introduction Tumor staging plays an important role in determining treatment in colorectal cancer. In the recent past, the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been used as a predictive marker of inflammation for different types of clinical entities. Our study aims to determine if NLR can predict tumor staging in patients with colorectal cancer. Materials and methods We retrospectively analyzed all cases that underwent surgical treatment for colorectal cancer from 2014 to 2020. The NLR, tumor stage, and histology report for all patients were reviewed. Recommended cut-off values for NLR for tumor stage (T), lymph node stage (N), and metastatic stage (M) were determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results NLR was found to be significantly higher in patients with T3-T4 tumors as compared to T1-T2 tumors (mean: 5.8 vs. 2.6, respectively p < 0.001). The NLR values were higher in cases of N1-N2 groups as compared to N0 groups (mean: 5.7 vs. 3.5, p = 0.07). The NLR was also higher in M1 patients as compared to M0 patients (32.1 vs. 4.5, respectively, p = 0.24) but failed to show a statistical significance. Conclusion NLR is a useful predictor of colorectal cancer which can give us some information about the type of tumor we may encounter during surgery.