Pretreatment lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio as an independent prognostic factor for head and neck cancer

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between pretreatment inflammatory markers and the prognosis of patients with oropharyngeal, hypopharyngeal, and laryngeal cancers. Methods: The data for 285 patients treated with curative intent by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) were obtained and their pretreatment inflammatory markers, including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) were calculated. Results: Significant relationships were observed between a high NLR and oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer, T3 to T4, N2b to N3, and clinical stage III to IV, whereas significant relationships were observed between a high LMR and laryngeal cancer, T1 to T2, and clinical stage I to II. With regard to survival outcomes, a high NLR, a high PLR, and a low LMR were all significantly associated with decreases in overall survival OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Furthermore, multivariate analysis showed that LMR was an independent prognostic factor. Conclusion: Pretreatment LMR was found to be an independent prognostic factor for patients with head and neck cancers treated by concurrent CRT.