Preoperative systemic immune-inflammation index predicts prognosis and guides clinical treatment in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic value of a systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) and the relationship between SII and the effectiveness of postoperative treatment in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODS

A total of 538 patients diagnosed with NSCLC who had undergone curative surgery were retrospectively enrolled in the study. Clinicopathologic and laboratory variables were collected. SII was defined as neutrophil × platelet/lymphocyte counts. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to analyze the prognostic value of these factors.

RESULTS

The preoperative SII level was associated with sex, smoking history, histological type, lesion type, resection type, pathological stage, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte/monocyte ratio (LMR), fibrinogen and bone metastasis (P<0.05). The univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that SII was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival (DFS, P=0.033) and overall survival (OS, P=0.020). Furthermore, the prognostic value of SII was also verified regardless of the histological type and pathological stage. The subgroup analysis demonstrated that patients with a high SII may benefit from adjuvant therapy (P=0.024 for DFS and P=0.012 for OS).

CONCLUSION

An increased preoperative SII may independently predict the poor DFS and OS in patients with resectable NSCLC. SII may help select NSCLC patients who might benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.