Pre-operative systemic inflammatory response markers in predicting lymph node metastasis in endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma

Objectives

To evaluate the correlation of pre-operative systemic inflammatory response (SIR) markers with lymph node (LN) metastasis compared with serum CA-125 in endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma.

Study design

Retrospective review of 319 patients who were pathologically proven to have endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma after staging operations. Serum CA-125 and pre-operative SIR markers [neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), C-reactive protein (CRP), albumin, platelets and fibrinogen] were assessed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted for each SIR marker and serum CA-125.

Results

NLR, PLR and serum CA-125 were higher in the LN-positive group compared with the LN-negative group (p = 0.003, 0.012 and 0.025, respectively). Serum albumin was significantly lower in the LN-positive group compared with the LN-negative group (p < 0.001). ROC curves demonstrated the best cut-off values for NLR (≥1.97), PLR (≥9.14), albumin (≤4.15 g/dl) and serum CA-125 (≥32.50 U/ml) for pre-operative diagnosis of LN metastasis. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of serum CA-125 were 63.3%, 87.6%, 37.3%, 95.4% and 85.1%, respectively. No pre-operative SIR markers were superior to serum CA-125 in terms of sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV or accuracy, with the exception of the slightly higher sensitivity of PLR (64.5%).

Conclusions

Pre-operative SIR markers do not appear to be more effective in predicting LN metastasis than serum CA-125 in endometrioid endometrial adenocarcinoma.