BACKGROUND: Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is an indicator of the inflammatory state, and its increase has been shown to be a negative prognostic factor for many malignancies. The aim of this study was to determine whether there was a relationship between NLR and tumor aggressiveness in gastric cancer patients and to investigate the prognostic significance of NLR.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The medical records of 189 patients with gastric cancer between January 2009 and January 2014 were examined for the presence of metastasis, tumor staging, tumor differentiation grade, and preoperative NLR value.

RESULTS: Of the 189 patients, 61 were female (32.2%) and 128 were male (67.7%). Eight-eight patients had NLR values of four or higher. A comparison of the high NLR value group and the low NLR value group found no statistically significant difference for clinicopathological features of age, gender, type of operation, of degree of differentiation; differences ranged from 20.7% to 46.2%, p<0.001.

CONCLUSIONS: Increase in NLR has been associated with poor prognosis in univariate analysis and variations of this parameter have also been shown to be correlated with tumor progression. NLR values should be considered as a useful follow-up parameter.

Keywords: Lymphocyte Activation, Neutrophils