Lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio in pancreatic cancer: Prognostic significance and meta-analysis

An increasing number of studies have investigated the prognostic value of the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) in various types of cancer. The present meta-analysis was designed to investigate its prognostic value of pretreatment LMR in pancreatic cancer (PC).An integrated meta-analysis was conducted and eligible studies were recruited by a systematic search in MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases. The association between LMR and survival outcomes and clinicopathological features were analyzed in PC patients.A total of 10 studies (11 cohorts) comprising 2557 patients were included in this meta-analysis. The result demonstrated that low LMR could predict unfavorable overall survival(OS) (HR: 0.60, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.50-0.71, p < 0.001) and disease-free survival (DFS)/recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR: 0.43, 95% CI: 0.20-0.94, p = 0.03). Moreover, low LMR was also positively correlated with male patients, CA199, and TNM stage.This study suggested that low pretreatment LMR was associated with advanced clinicopathological features and poor prognosis as a predicative factor in patients with PC.