title: Increased platelet-lymphocyte ratio closely relates to inferior clinical features and worse long-term survival in both resected and metastatic colorectal cancer: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of 24 studies.
abstract: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. However, the prognostic and clinical value of platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in colorectal cancer was still unclear, which attracted more and more researchers' considerable attention. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between PLR and survival as well as clinical features of CRC update to September 2016. The hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to access the association. We included 24 eligible studies with a total of 13719 patients. Elevated PLR predicted shorter overall survival (OS) (HR=1.47; 95%CI, 1.28-1.68; p<0.001), poorer disease-free survival (DFS) (HR=1.51; 95% CI, 1.2-1.91; p=0.001), and worse recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR=1.39; 95% CI, 1.03-1.86; p=0.03), but had nothing to do with Cancer-specific survival (CSS) (HR=1.14; 95% CI, 0.92-1.42; p=0.223). After trim and fill method, the connection between PLR and DFS disappeared (HR=1.143; 95%CI, 0.903-1.447; p=0.267). By subgroup analyze, we found that increased PLR predicated a worse OS and DFS in patients who underwent surgery, and this prognostic role also shown both in metastatic and nonmetastatic patients. In addition, elevated PLR was associated with poorly differentiated tumor (OR=1.51; 95% CI, 1.26-1.81; p<0.001), higher tumor stage (OR=1.25; 95% CI, 1.05-1.49; p=0.012), lymphovascular invasion (LVI) (OR=1.25; 95% CI, 1.09-1.43; p=0.001), and the recurrence of CRC (OR=2.78; 95% CI, 1.36-5.68; p=0.005). We indicated that pretreatment PLR was a good prognostic marker for CRC patients. High PLR was related to worse OS, RFS and poor clinical characteristics.
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Nan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Wanling
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Kexin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Wenhao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Tianxin
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cong
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Qingfang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: West China School of Medicine/West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.|Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Center, the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Qiu
mesh_terms: D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D060787:Neoplasm Grading; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010976:Platelet Count; D011379:Prognosis; D017594:Publication Bias
keywords: clinical features; colorectal cancer; meta-analysis; platelet-lymphocyte ratio; prognosis