Prognostic role of lymphocyte to monocyte ratio in feline high-grade lymphomas.

The lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR) is a useful prognostic marker of various cancers in human and canine patients. This study aimed to determine whether this ratio could predict disease outcomes in cats with high-grade lymphoma. Medical records of 33 cats diagnosed with high-grade lymphoma were retrospectively analyzed. The prognostic influence of LMR and other clinicopathological data on the time to progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) was studied using the Kaplan-Meier curves. The optimal cutoff value of this ratio was 3.4, which corresponded to the maximum sensitivity (1.000) and specificity (0.611) of the LMR for predicting median OS days, using receiver operating characteristic analysis. A univariate analysis demonstrated that cats with a low LMR had significant reductions in both TTP [hazard ration (HR) = 3.403, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.502 to 8.720; P = 0.003] and OS (HR = 3.418, 95% CI: 1.433 to 9.449, P = 0.005). In multivariate analysis, independent predictors of OS included LMR (HR = 2.889, 95% CI: 1.048 to 8.843, P = 0.040), clinical stage (HR = 0.330, 95% CI: 0.118 to 0.960, P = 0.042), and age (HR = 4.151, 95% CI: 1.574 to 11.888, P = 0.004).