SynthesisScientific reports2025
Pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with immunotherapy efficacy in patients with advanced cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Predictive value of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio for the clinical outcome of patients with ureteral stones: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC urology · 2026Pooled it
- Prediction of Residual Disease in Unresectable Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma After Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy.World journal of oncology · 2026Article
- Baseline Neutrophil-To-Lymphocyte Ratio as a Risk Stratification Marker for Severe Checkpoint Inhibitor Pneumonitis in Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Two-Cohort Study With Retrospective Discovery and Prospective Validation.Respirology (Carlton, Vic.) · 2026Article
- A neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio-centered machine learning model for predicting immunotherapy response in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients.Journal of thoracic disease · 2026Article
- Observational
- Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and MUST-Defined Nutritional Risk as Independent Correlates of Domain-Specific Quality of Life in Cancer Patients Receiving Chemotherapy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Baseline neutrophil-to-eosinophil ratio and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as prognostic markers in patients with unresectable biliary tract cancer treated with gemcitabine-cisplatin-durvalumab: an international, multicentre, retrospective cohort study.ESMO gastrointestinal oncology · 2026Article
- Platelet-neutrophil cooperation in cancer: mechanisms of metastatic niche formation and implications for prognostic stratification and therapy.Cellular oncology (Dordrecht, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Article
- Article
- Albumin-Bound STING Agonist Reprograms HSPCs to Antitumor Neutrophils Enhancing CD8Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Harnessing the Microbiome in Cancer Immunotherapy: Regulation, Prediction, and Therapeutic Targeting.Annual review of immunology · 2026Review
- Clinical applications of immunogenomics in hepatocellular carcinoma.Clinical and molecular hepatology · 2026Review
- Utility of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio extends to patients from East Asia.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Article
- Machine learning-assisted classification of lung cancer: the role of sarcopenia, inflammatory biomarkers, and PET/CT anatomical-metabolic parameters.Physical and engineering sciences in medicine · 2026Article
- Prognostic Value of Systemic Inflammation Markers (NLR and Haemoglobin) in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Survival Analysis from a Real-World Single-Centre Cohort Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Observational
- Allostatic Load Predicts Immune-Related Toxicity and Survival in Melanoma Patients Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors.Cancers · 2026Article
- Association of clinicopathological characteristics and baseline peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets with efficacy of first-line immunotherapy in advanced gastric cancer.Discover oncology · 2026Article
- Preoperative Prognostic Score for Patients with Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Undergoing Curative-Intent Resection.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Baseline immune-organFrontiers in medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This study aimed to systematically investigate the value of the pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in prognosticating the outcome of patients with advanced cancer receiving immunotherapy. We searched Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library to identify studies about cancer patients with immunotherapy until November 29, 2024. Retrospective or prospective cohort studies with pretreatment NLR data were included. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to evaluate the predictive value of NLR in prognosis and immunotherapy efficacy. The random effect model was applied for meta-analysis and the risk of bias was assessed by Egger test and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) method. A total of 129 articles involving 18780 cases were finally selected. Most cases were advanced cancers with the median follow-up period ranged 2-48.6 months. The high pretreatment NLR level was associated with the significantly reduced OS (HR (95%CI) = 2.26 (2.03, 2.53)), PFS (HR (95% CI) = 1.83 (1.69, 1.98)), ORR (OR (95%CI) = 0.53 (0.46, 0.61)) and DCR (OR (95% CI) = 0.36 (0.29, 0.43)) in patients with advanced cancer receiving immunotherapy. The quality of evidence was low, attributed to the serious risk of bias and incon¬sistency. An elevated NLR before immunotherapy was significantly associated with poor clinical outcomes in patients with advanced cancer.
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