Background: Approximately one-quarter of patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage 0/A hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) suffer from tumor relapse within the first year after surgical resection. Little data is available for inflammatory indices, including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and prognostic nutritional index (PNI), in predicting the clinical outcome of patients with very early/early stage HCC who underwent curative surgery.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study of 324 patients with BCLC stage 0/A primary HCC undergoing surgical resection was conducted to investigate the prognostic impacts of NLR, PLR, and PNI.
Results: The low-PNI group (<45) had an adverse overall survival (1-year survival rate of 92 vs. 97 %; 5-year survival rate of 57 vs. 82 %; p < 0.001) and disease-free survival (1-year survival rate of 69 vs. 85 %; 5-year survival rate of 39 vs. 63 %; p < 0.001). It was an independent predictor for disease-specific death, and early and late tumor relapses, with hazard ratios of 2.78 (p < 0.001), 1.82 (p = 0.011), and 2.55 (p = 0.013), respectively. Neither NLR nor PLR had any prognostic significance.
Conclusions: The PNI is a significant prognostic factor for OS and DFS of patients with very early/early stage HCC receiving curative surgery.