Prognostic Significance of Preoperative Circulating Monocyte Count in Patients With Breast Cancer: Based on a Large Cohort Study

Growing evidence showed that inflammation response plays an important role in cancer development and progression, and absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), absolute monocyte count (AMC), and lymphocyte to monocyte ratio (LMR) have been used as parameters of systemic inflammation in several tumors. In this study, we evaluated the prognostic significance of preoperative ALC, AMC and LMR in breast cancer and 2000 patients between January 2002 and December 2008 at Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center were enrolled. Patients were grouped by the cut-off value according to the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that patients with elevated AMC levels (>0.48 × 10⁹/L) had shorter overall survival (OS, P < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, preoperative AMC was identified as an independent prognostic parameter for OS in breast cancer patients (hazard ratio = 1.374, 95% confidence interval: 1.045–1.807). Subgroup analyses revealed that AMC was an unfavorable prognostic factor in stage II–III breast cancer patients and Luminal B, human epithelial growth factor receptor-2 overexpressing subtype, and triple-negative breast cancer (all P < 0.05). Additionally, the prognostic value of ALC and LMR could not be proven in the current study. Preoperative AMC may serve as an easily available and low-priced parameter to predict the outcomes of breast cancer.