Preoperative inflammatory and molecular marker changes in 125 supratentorial glioma cases

To determine whether there is a possible link between selected preoperative systemic inflammatory markers and molecular pathological indices.

For this retrospective study, 125 patients served as subjects. Preoperative systemic inflammatory markers, namely neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR), and postoperative pathological indices, namely mitosis, Ki-67 labeling index (LI), isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) mutation, and 1p/19q codeletion, were obtained from the electronic database.

Results showed that NLR positively correlated with PLR (p = 0.00001), mitotic activity (p = 0.001), and Ki-67 LI (p = 0.00001). On the other hand, LMR negatively correlated with PLR (p = 0.00001), mitotic activity (p = 0.00001), Ki-67 LI (p = 0.001), and IDH1 mutation (p = 0.04).

Our results suggest a link between systemic inflammation and histopathology, and higher NLR and/or lower LMR may be a novel prognostic marker in gliomas. A prospective multicenter study with a larger patient population would be more convincing. Until such a study is published, the results of retrospective studies, including ours, should be evaluated with caution.