Investigating the predictive role of inflammatory indices in cancer metastasis

Early detection of metastasis in cancer patients plays a pivotal role in improving treatment outcomes and increasing patient survival. This study aimed to evaluate the predictive role of inflammatory indices, including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), systemic immune inflammation index (SII), and systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), in identifying metastatic status.

In this study, 60 cancer patients were enrolled between December 2023 and June 2024. Clinicopathological data and complete blood counts (CBCs) were collected prior to treatment initiation. The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine the optimal cutoff values of different baseline inflammatory indices for the metastatic status analysis.

The levels of inflammatory indices were greater in metastatic patients than in nonmetastatic patients; however, only the SIRI was significantly different (1.04 [0.76-1.69] vs. 0.71 [0.45-1.07]; P = 0.044). ROC curve analysis revealed that the area under the curve (AUC) for the SIRI was 0.652 (95% CI 0.507-0.797). Furthermore, broader combinations of the SIRI and MLR, either individually or in conjunction with the NLR, PLR, and/or SII, yielded multi-index models with greater discriminatory power and maintained statistical significance (p < 0.05).

The findings indicate that the SIRI, in combination with the MLR, plays a significant role in predicting the metastatic status of cancer patients.