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Improved prognosis of low baseline neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is significantly exclusive in breast cancer patients with high absolute counts of lymphocytes.

Although the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a valuable prognostic factor for early breast cancer, the patient subgroups that may benefit the most from NLR analysis remain unknown. The present study analyzed the prognostic significance of NLR according to absolute lymphocyte counts (ALCs). A total of 889 patients with operated early breast cancers were retrospectively recruited. Existing NLR and ALC baseline data from the time-period prior to operation or preoperative chemotherapy were collected. The cut-off value for NLR was set at 2.72 according to the receiver operating characteristic curve. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) of NLR-low patients at baseline (n=582) was significantly better than that of NLR-high patients (n=307, P=0.036). Improved patient prognoses were observed in the NLR-low, ALC-high (>1,688/µl; 5-year RFS, 0.88 vs. 0.57; P<0.0001) subgroup (n=355), but not in the NLR-low, ALC-low (≤1,688/µl; 5-year RFS, 0.87 vs. 0.87; P=0.46) subgroup (n=534). Using multivariate analysis, NLR was observed to be a significant and independent factor for RFS (hazard ratio: 3.52; 95% confidence interval: 1.61-7.32; P=0.0023) in the ALC-high breast cancer subgroup. Prognostic significance for baseline NLR was found exclusively in the ALC - high subgroup. Since NLR is a simple marker, the results obtained here might be useful for identifying patients who have high recurrence risk, and those that are candidates for additional treatments.