Prognostic significance of preoperative serum inflammation markers in patients with male breast cancer

Background: There were no predictive prognosis factors of serum in male breast cancer, while breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. The purpose of our study was to determine the prognostic implications of the pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) in the serum of patients with male breast cancer.

Methods: We retrospectively identified a random cohort of male breast cancer patients treated at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between Jan 1, 1996 and Dec 31, 2016. A number of 108 patients had different inflammation markers recorded pre-operation. Survival status was retrieved from our cancer center registry and phone follow-up. Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to analyze the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).

Results: Among these patients in this study, 13 (12.0%) had disease recurrence, and 7 (6.5%) patients appeared distant metastasis. No statistically significant association of the preoperative NLR, PLR or LMR level with patients' different outcomes was found.

Conclusions: In short, we were unable to establish a connection between preoperative inflammation biomarkers and male breast cancer patients' survival. Neither NLR, PLR nor LMR is useful for predicting prognosis in male breast cancer patients, and prospective studies to evaluate the above biomarkers as a simple prognostic trail is necessary.