White blood cell and platelet indices as prognostic markers in patients with invasive ductal breast carcinoma.

A growing body of evidence suggests that oncogenesis is associated with systemic inflammation. The present study investigated white blood cell and platelet indices, whose values change during the inflammatory response, in women with invasive ductal breast carcinoma. Preoperatively obtained white blood cell and platelet counts from 53 patients with early breast cancer, who developed systemic metastases over a mean follow-up period of 65 months, were analyzed and compared with those of a matching control group formed of 37 patients with the same characteristics, who remained recurrence-free during the same time period. Patients who developed distant metastasis had a significantly higher mean platelet volume and lower neutrophil count than patients who did not present with distant metastasis. Furthermore, time to distant metastasis development was longer in patients with a lower mean platelet volume, whilst patients with a lower neutrophil count had a shorter systemic disease-free time interval. However, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis demonstrated that these parameters provided moderate accuracy in predicting which patients may develop distant metastasis. No differences were detected between patient groups regarding additional parameters. Patients who developed systemic disease during a mean follow-up period of 65 months were observed to have an increased mean platelet volume and decreased neutrophil count preoperatively. These results indicate that such parameters may be of prognostic value in patients with breast cancer. Studies with a larger number of patients are required to further investigate this hypothesis.