The relationship between inflammation markers, positron emission tomography/ /computed tomography parameters and disease prognosis in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients

Introduction. Inflammation is known to be related to the development, spread, prognosis, and treatment response in cancer patients. Our study aimed to evaluate the correlation between inflammation indices and positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/CT) parameters and investigate their relationship with progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients diagnosed with stage-IV non -small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Material and methods. Demographic, clinicopathological, laboratory, and PET/CT data of 179 patients diagnosed with stage-IV NSCLC who presented to the Oncology Department of Dicle University, Faculty of Medicine between 2010-2020 were retrieved from patient files and the hospital database system. Results. The median age at diagnosis was 64 (27-87) years. All patients included in the study had NSCLC: 72.6% had adenocarcinoma, 21.2% had squamous cell carcinoma, and 6.1% had other histological types. Of the 78 patients who were subjected to molecular analysis, 26 (33.3%) were EGFR-mutation positive. During the 10-month median follow-up, median first -line PFS was 6 months (95% CI 5.00-6.99), and median OS was 10 months (95% CI 7.8-12.1). The multivariate analysis performed for first -line PFS determined hemoglobin (HR = 1.01; 95% CI 1.003-1.02; p = 0.005) and PET total lesion glycolysis (TLG) (HR = 1.002; 95% CI 1.001-1.003; p = 0.003) values as independent prognostic factors. The multivariate analysis for OS determined positive EGFR mutation status (HR = 0.385; 95% CI 0.213-0.696; p = 0,014) and performance status (HR = 1.88; 95% CI 1.092-3.238; p = 0,008) as independent prognostic factors. Conclusions. Our study determined the hemoglobin level and PET TLG from PET/CT parameters to be independent prognostic factors for PFS, and performance status and EGFR mutation positivity to be independent prognostic factors for OS.