Prognostic significance of inflammatory markers in patients with rare kidney cancers

Abstract

Background: Although clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common histological variety of malignant renal tumor, histological variants are often encountered in clinical practice which behaves differently. Paucity of such tumors makes them a subject of interest worldwide. As per European Association of Urology, since ccRCC is a non-designation, they included all non-clear cell RCC under one nomenclature as rare kidney cancer (RKC). The objective of our study is to determine influence of inflammatory markers on the prognosis of RKC.Methods: Data from cancer registry was retrieved and all rare kidney cancer patient’s data were analysed particularly the markers of inflammation like neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic inflammatory immune index (SIII) and C reactive protein (CRP) to albumin ratio and their probable influence on cancer free survival (CFS), progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).Results: Data of 33 cases of rare kidney cancers were included in this study. The follow up duration ranges from 6.8 months to 38.6 months. In the univariate analysis, NLR had a significant influence on CFS, PFS and OS (cutoff value-3.2, 95% confidence interval [CI], CFS: p<0.05; PFS: p=0.05; OS: p<0.05), PLR in respect to CFS (cutoff value-67.5, 95% CI, p<0.05) and SIII had a significant impact on CFS and OS (cutoff value-8.67, 95% CI, 11.10-19.57, CFS: p<0.05; OS: p<0.05).Conclusions: Inflammation markers such as NLR, PLR, SII Index and CRP or albumin ratio could be independent predictors of clinical outcome and prognostics factors in rare kidney cancers. However, this needs to be validated by multicentre randomised studies.