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Introduction: The blood-based inflammatory marker, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), is a reliable prognostic biomarker for several cancers. Although the literature supports the correlation between preoperative NLR, clinicopathological characteristics, and oncological outcomes in upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC), the cutoff of NLR is still debated. This study aimed to determine the prognostic value of NLR in patients with UTUC. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from July 2012 to December 2022 evaluating patients with UTUC who underwent radical nephroureterectomy (RNU). NLR was calculated using the neutrophil and lymphocyte counts obtained a day before the surgery and the cutoff value was set as 2.5. Kaplan-Meier and Cox's proportional hazards regression were used to analyze the association between NLR and the oncological outcomes. Results: The study included 91 patients (78 males, 13 females) in the final analysis with a median follow-up of 49 months (8-130). The mean age of the patients with NLR <2.5 and NLR >2.5 was 56.88 years and 56.35 years, respectively, and the pathological stage was pT1 in 48%, pT2 in 20.88%, pT3 in 27.47%, and pT4 in 3.30% of the patients. Multivariable Cox regression analysis showed that the preoperative NLR >2.5 was significantly associated (Hz = 7.17) with higher T stage, lymphovascular invasion, necrosis, nodal involvement, adjuvant chemotherapy, and worse overall survival (OS) (Hz = 9.87). The Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed an improved OS in patients with NLR <2.5, but a statistically significant difference in the recurrence-free survival was not found. Conclusions: Preoperative NLR is an easily available, inexpensive, and important prognostic biomarker of survival in patients with UTUC and has a potential role in risk stratification by predicting adverse clinicopathological characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Differentiating obstructive (OA) from non‐obstructive (NOA) azoospermia is clinically important in managing infertile men. Classically, the differentiation has been based on clinical, hormonal and histological analysis. Histological tests are invasive and may miss spermatogenic areas. Seminal fluid can serve as a medium to assess the status of spermatogenesis and presence or absence of certain markers can help diagnosing and differentiating azoospermia. We evaluated the role of cell‐free seminal markers: DDX4, PRM1 and PRM2 in diagnosing and differentiating between OA and NOA and classifying their subtypes. We observed DDX4 was more sensitive for NOA compared with OA. Among various subtypes of NOA, DDX4 positivity was higher in patients with maturation arrest and hypospermatogenesis compared with Sertoli cell only syndrome. PRM1 and PRM2 had very low positivity rate for any meaningful comparison. Seminal cell‐free markers can serve as non‐invasive tests in diagnosing and differentiating etiologies of azoospermia but their validity needs to be proved in long‐term trials with more refined molecular techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]