Predicting Chemotherapy Resistance in Gestational Trophoblastic Neoplasia: Ratio of Neutrophils, Lymphocytes, Monocytes, and Platelets

BACKGROUND: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have recently been used as inflammatory biomarkers for cancer patients. This study aims to determine the role of pretreatment NLR, LMR, and PLR in predicting chemoresistance in gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) patients. MATERIAL/METHODS: A total of 129 low-risk and high-risk GTN patients who had received first-line chemotherapy were enrolled in this historical cohort study. The pretreatment NLR, LMR, and PLR values were analyzed to predict the resistance to first-line chemotherapy in low-risk and high-risk GTN patients. RESULTS: Chemoresistant patients had significantly higher NLR than chemosensitive patients in low-risk and high-risk GTN patients (P<0.05). In high-risk GTN, patients with lower LMR and higher PLR tended to have chemoresistance to first-line chemotherapy (P=0.008, P=0.001). Univariate analysis revealed that the NLR, LMR, and PLR cut-off points of 2.654, 3.8, and 192.174, respectively, were associated with chemoresistance in high-risk GTN (P=0.0001, P=0.011, P=0.0001). The combination of NLR, PLR, and FIGO score in high-risk GTN was the best combination among other combinations with cut-off value >17 (P=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Higher NLR, lower LMR, and higher PLR were associated with chemoresistance for high-risk GTN patients. Furthermore, NLR, LMR, and PLR can improve the accuracy of predicting resistance to first-line chemotherapy in high-risk GTN.