Prognostic Roles of Inflammatory Markers in Pancreatic Cancer: Comparison between the Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio

Table 3

Correlation between lymphocyte-associated parameters and survival rate.

	Number of subset	Fixed effect (95% CI)	Heterogeneity test ( value)	Random effect (95% CI)	Egger’s test ( value)
NLR
Overall	35	1.147 (0.116, 1.180)	<0.001	1.737 (1.502, 2.009)	<0.001
Location
Asia	26	1.129 (1.097, 1.162)	<0.001	1.763 (1.470, 2.114)	<0.001
Non-Asia	9	1.544 (1.365, 1.747)	0.054	1.626 (1.360, 1.946)	0.010
Tumor stage
I and II	1	1.859 (1.272, 2.717)	1.000	1.859 (1.272, 2.717)	—
III and IV	17	1.733 (1.563, 1.921)	<0.001	1.929 (1.509, 2.467)	0.144
Treatment
Surgery	1	1.510 (1.148, 1.986)	1.000	1.510 (1.148, 1.986)	—
Chemotherapy	13	1.797 (1.603, 2.015)	<0.001	2.043 (1.584, 2636)	0.061
Chemo- and radiotherapy	2	1.333 (0.917, 1.937)	0.020	0.922 (0.269, 3.162)	—
Mixed	18	1.110 (1.078, 1.143)	<0.001	1.670 (1.385, 2.013)	<0.001
NLR criteria
High (>4)	18	1.954 (1.749, 2.183)	<0.001	2.001 (1.602, 2.499)	0.671
Low (≤4)	17	1.107 (1.075, 1.139)	<0.001	1.508 (1.285, 1.770)	<0.001
PLR
Overall	14	1.009 (1.007, 1.011)	0.009	1.143 (1.037, 1.259)	0.008
Location
Asia	11	1.009 (1.007, 1.011)	0.026	1.121 (1.010, 1.243)	0.038
Non-Asia	3	1.217 (1.013, 1.462)	0.171	1.239 (0.968, 1.587)	0.232
Tumor stage
III and IV	6	1.155 (1.002, 1.332)	0.281	1.158 (0.983, 1.364)	0.828
Treatment
Chemotherapy	3	1.053 (0.861, 1.287)	0.488	1.053 (0.861, 1.287)	0.203
Chemo- and radiotherapy	2	1.282 (0.937, 1.753)	0.075	1.206 (0.674, 2.158)	—
Mixed	8	1.009 (1.007, 1.011)	0.021	1.125 (1.009, 1.254)	0.043
PLR criteria
High (>150)	5	1.009 (1.007, 1.011)	0.001	1.219 (0.992, 1.499)	0.080
Low (≤150)	9	1.105 (1.000, 1.222)	0.561	1.105 (1.000, 1.222)	0.471

NLR: neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio; PLR: platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio; CI: confidence interval. “Mixed” treatment indicates surgery plus chemotherapy/radiotherapy.