Background Current prognostic criteria are insufficient in predicting outcomes in head and neck cancers, necessitating new, readily available biomarkers Methods Pretreatment neutrophil and lymphocyte counts and their ratio (NLR) were retrospectively investigated for correlation with overall survival while controlling for demographic and clinical confounders. Results Patients in the highest tertile of neutrophil counts and those in the lowest tertile of lymphocytes experienced shorter survival than the rest of the population. Patients in the highest tertile of the NLR were at a higher risk compared to those in the lowest tertile after multivariate analysis (HR=2.39, p=0.0001). Additionally, NLR was lower in patients with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) positive tumors compared to HPV negative ones and predicted survival in both tumor types. Conclusions Neutrophil and lymphocyte counts are strong biomarkers with opposing prognostic significance and the NLR is a robust predictor of overall survival in oral, pharyngeal and laryngeal squamous cell carcinomas.

Some serrated polyps of the colorectum are likely pre-invasive lesions, evolving through a newly recognized serrated pathway to colorectal cancer. To assess possible risk and protective factors for serrated polyps – and particularly to explore differences in risk factors between polyps in the right and left colorectum – we pooled data from three large multi-center chemoprevention trials. A serrated polyp (SP) was defined broadly as any serrated lesion (hyperplastic, sessile serrated adenoma, traditional serrated adenoma, mixed adenoma) diagnosed during each trial’s main treatment period, of about three to four years. Using generalized linear regression, we computed risk ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CI’s) as measures of the association between risk of serrated polyps and demographic, lifestyle, and dietary variables. Of the 2830 subjects that completed at least one follow-up exam after randomization, 675 (23.9 %) had at least one left sided serrated polyp and 261 (9.2 %) had at least one right sided lesion. In the left colorectum, obesity, cigarette smoking, dietary fat, total energy intake, and red meat intake were associated with an increased risk of serrated polyps. In the right colon, aspirin treatment was associated with a reduced risk and family history of polyps and folate treatment were associated with an increased risk of serrated polyps. Our results suggest that several common lifestyle and dietary variables are associated with risk of serrated polyps, and some of these may differ for the right and left colorectum.