Characterization of blood inflammatory markers in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Objective: To investigate the differences and correlation between blood inflammatory indexes such as monocytes (MONO), lymphocytes (LYM), haemoglobin (HGB), neutrophils (NEU), platelets (PLT), ultrasensitive C-reactive protein, albumin and platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), NEU/LYM ratio (NLR), MONO/LYM ratio (MLR) and clinicopathologic characteristics of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Methods: 187 patients with NSCLC who were first diagnosed in 2017-2023 and 102 with healthy check-ups during the same period (control group) were retrospectively selected as study subjects to compare the differences in inflammatory indexes between the two groups and the levels of inflammatory indexes in NSCLC patients with different clinicopathologic characteristics.

Results: Correlation analysis between blood inflammatory indexes and clinicopathologic features in NSCLC group showed that C-reactive protein, CAR, and PLR values were different in different pathologic types (P<0.05). The values of NEU, MONO, C-reactive protein, MLR, NLR, CAR and albumin were different among various degrees of differentiation (P<0.05). There were differences in LYM, albumin, MLR, NLR, CAR, and C-reactive protein among M stage subgroups (P<0.05). Analysis of the efficacy of early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer has been shown, the AUC of NLR was 0.796, sensitivity of 0.679, specificity of 0.176, 95% CI=0.743-0.849 (P<0.001). The AUC of albumin was 0.977, the sensitivity was 0.941, the specificity was 0.941, and 95% CI was 0.959-0.994 (P<0.001).

Conclusion: Blood inflammatory indexes are closely associated with NSCLC and vary according to pathologic features. Blood inflammatory indices can predict tumor pathologic staging and guide treatment for patients with NSCLC.