Background

Systemic inflammation has been correlated with worse survival for some cancers. We evaluated prognostic values of various inflammatory factor combinations in patients who underwent resections for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods

We retrospectively analysed 306 consecutive patients with HCC who underwent curative liver resections. After assessing eight combinations of inflammatory markers for predictive value for recurrence, we focused on lymphocyte-to-C-reactive protein ratio (LCR) to elucidate its associations with recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) in univariate and multivariate analyses (Cox proportional hazards model). We also used immunohistochemical CD34 and CD8 staining to investigate the mechanism of LCR elevation.

Results

LCR showed the highest association with RFS in HCC patients among the compared indices. High preoperative LCR correlated with a high serum albumin concentration, small tumour size, early Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage and low rates of microscopic vascular invasion and microscopic intrahepatic metastasis. Higher preoperative LCR was an independent predictor of longer RFS and OS in this cohort. High LCR patients had fewer vessels encapsulating tumour clusters, and higher intratumoural CD8⁺ T-cell counts than low LCR patients.

Conclusions

Preoperative LCR is a novel and convenient prognostic marker for patients with HCC, and is associated with the tumour microenvironment immune status.

中文翻译：

---

淋巴细胞与 C 反应蛋白的比率作为肝细胞癌的预后因素

背景

全身性炎症与某些癌症的较差存活率相关。我们评估了各种炎症因子组合对接受肝细胞癌 (HCC) 切除术患者的预后价值。

方法

我们回顾性分析了 306 例连续接受根治性肝切除术的 HCC 患者。在评估了八种炎症标志物组合的复发预测价值后，我们重点关注淋巴细胞与 C 反应蛋白比率 (LCR)，以阐明其与单变量和多变量无复发生存期 (RFS) 和总生存期 (OS) 的关联分析（Cox 比例风险模型）。我们还使用免疫组织化学 CD34 和 CD8 染色来研究 LCR 升高的机制。

结果

在比较的指标中，LCR 与 HCC 患者的 RFS 相关性最高。高术前 LCR 与高血清白蛋白浓度、小肿瘤、早期巴塞罗那临床肝癌分期以及低微血管侵犯和微肝内转移率相关。较高的术前 LCR 是该队列中较长 RFS 和 OS 的独立预测因子。与低 LCR 患者相比，高 LCR 患者包裹肿瘤簇的血管更少，肿瘤内 CD8 ⁺ T 细胞计数更高。

结论

术前 LCR 是 HCC 患者一种新型且方便的预后指标，与肿瘤微环境免疫状态相关。