title: Preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) may be predictive of pathologic stage in patients with bladder cancer larger than 3 cm.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Bladder cancer (BCa) is the most common malignancy of the urinary tract. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the ability of preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) to predict pathologic stage of at the time of first transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TUR-BT) in patients with BCa larger than 3 cm.
  
  
  METHODS
  Records of consecutive patients undergoing TUR-BT for BCa with a diameter >3 cm were reviewed. A total of 222 patients were eligible for analysis, and were divided into two groups: 162 patients in non-muscle-invasive BCa (NMIBC) group and 60 patients in muscle-invasive BCa (MIBC) group. Differences in preoperative blood parameters and NLR were evaluated between groups with an unequal variance t-test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the NMIBC group, 59 patients had low-grade and 103 high-grade papillary urothelial carcinomas. 60 patients had T2 stage carcinoma. The mean age of the patients was 71.8 and 75.7 years, and mean NLR was 3.44 ± 2.03 and 4.6 ± 2.8 in NMIBC and MIBC groups, respectively. In terms of NLR, there was a statistically significant difference between the NMIBC and MIBC groups (p = 0.005).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results showed that NLR might act as a significant predictive biomarker on the staging of BCa. Also, NLR could be used as a cost-effective, simple, common usable biomarker in urology clinic practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Tepecik Education and Research Hospital, Izmir, Turkey. drmuratakand@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Celik
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Akand
authors.forename: M Z
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Keskin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yoldas
authors.forename: Y O
authors.initials: YO
authors.lastname: Ilbey
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging / Q000379:methods; D009504:Neutrophils / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011300:Preoperative Care / Q000379:methods; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000473:pathology*