Effects of Primary Tumor Resection on Metastatic Breast Cancer Survival and the Predictive Power of Neutrophil: Lymphocyte Ratio on Prognosis.

Objective: The aim was to investigate the effect of primary tumor resection (PTR) on survival in metastatic breast cancer patients and to assess the power of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) regarding the prediction of prognosis in this patient group.

Materials and methods: Female patients diagnosed with and starting treatment for metastatic breast cancer from 2003 to 2016 in the general surgery and oncology clinics at a single center were retrospectively reviewed. Pre-treatment NLR value and survival situations were evaluated.

Results: A total of 117 patients were enrolled. The disease-specific survival (DSS) of the patients was 41.4 months. When stratified into PTR and systemic treatment (ST) groups, there was no difference in the survival (p = 0.054); 43.5 months in the PTR group vs 30.7 months in the ST group. When hormone receptor (HR)-positive/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative subgroups were analyzed, DSS was significantly longer (p = 0.02) in the PTR group (55.4 months) compared to the ST group (41.8 months). Finally, in patients with an NLR of <2.3, DSS was significantly longer (p = 0.03) in the PTR group (56.1 months) compared to the ST group (25.2 months).

Conclusion: These results suggest that DSS can be increased with PTR in selected patients with a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. NLR may be useful in selecting patients for appropraite treatment modality.