Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical significance of the combined fibrinogen and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (F-NLR) in patients with resectable colorectal cancer (CRC).
Patients and methods: We retrospectively recruited 693 patients with stage I–III CRC following curative surgery. Cutoff values of the preoperative fibrinogen and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were determined with the receiver operating characteristic analysis. Patients were divided into three groups based on the F-NLR value and were further divided into the chemotherapy and nonchemotherapy groups. The overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were evaluated with the Kaplan–Meier survival method, the log-rank test, univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards models, and subgroup analyses.
Results: The Kaplan–Meier survival curves revealed that the 5-year OS rates in the F-NLR 0, 1, and 2 groups were 78.4%, 52%, 42.6%, respectively (P <0.001), and the 5-year DFS rates were 54.9%, 43.9%, 26.7%, respectively (P <0.001). Multivariate analyses revealed that the F-NLR score was an independent prognostic factor for both the OS (P =0.035) and the DFS (P =0.001). In addition, subgroup analyses based on the histological type showed that an elevated F-NLR score was significantly associated with worse OS (P =0.001) and DFS (P <0.001) in patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma. Furthermore, DFS in the F-NLR 0–1 group was significantly shortened after the administration of chemotherapy (P =0.005); however, patients with a relatively higher F-NLR score showed slight OS benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy (P =0.144).
Conclusion: The F-NLR score, as a novel inflammation-based grading index, was a potential predictor for the prognosis and responses to chemotherapy in patients with resectable CRC.
Keywords: inflammation, fibrinogen, neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio, colorectal cancer, prognosis