Cellular immune inflammation markers in the blood of patients with gliomas of different malignancy grades

Inflammatory blood markers are vital for immune responses and predicting cancer outcomes. Their roles in brain gliomas remain unclear. the aim of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic significance of these markers in patients with gliomas, taking into account various histological subtypes and malignancy grades.

Material and Methods. This prospective study enrolled 139 patients with newly diagnosed supratentorial adult-type diffuse gliomas. The cohort was stratified based on tumor grade and genetic mutations, comprising 25 cases of grade 2 diffuse gliomas (of them 7 with oligodendroglioma), 25 cases of gliomas grade 3 (of them 8 with oligodendroglioma) or 4 and 89 patients with glioblastoma. The pre-operative neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were calculated.

Results. The LMR in the glioma grade 2 group was higher than that in the glioma grade 3, 4 and glioblastoma groups (3.71 vs 3.09 vs 3; p<0.05) with areas under the curve (AUCs) of 0.6552 (0.4930–0.8174) and 0.6586 (0.5583– 0.7590) respectively. LMR was higher in patients with IDH1/2-mutation gliomas (3.44 vs 3.0; p=0.039). No differences in LMR were observed between patients with oligodendroglioma and glioma without codeletion 1p/19q (3.43 vs 3.19; p=0.76). LMR in all cohorts was not affected by use of corticosteroids. The NLR was higher in glioblastoma patients than in patients with glioma grade 2 (2.9 vs 1.96, p<0.05). Increase of NLR in glioblastoma patients were correlated with the corticosteroids (3.7 vs 8.0, p<0.05 and 1.95 vs 3.79, p<0.05, respectively).

Conclusion. Thus, LMR has the potential to serve as a promising, additional, independent of the appointment of corticosteroids, diagnostic biomarker for diffuse gliomas of the adult type. An increase in the malignancy grade is associated with a decrease in LMR. NLR is not a reliable biomarker. Corticosteroids can increase NLR during steroid treatment, potentially affecting its reliability as a biomarker.

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