The prognostic significance of the serum inflammatory marker ratios, neutrophil-lymphocyte, platelet-lymphocyte and monocyte-lymphocyte in male breast cancer

Dylan P. McClurg; Michael Wong; Kirsty Luo-Yng  Tay; Gordon Urquhart; Feng-Yi Soh; Abdalla Saad Abdalla Al-Zawi; Beatrix Elsberger; Valerie Speirs

doi:10.1080/07357907.2025.2523908

The prognostic significance of the serum inflammatory marker ratios, neutrophil-lymphocyte, platelet-lymphocyte and monocyte-lymphocyte in male breast cancer

Dylan P. McClurg
, Michael Wong
, Kirsty Luo-Yng Tay
, Gordon Urquhart
, Feng-Yi Soh
, Abdalla Saad Abdalla Al-Zawi
, Beatrix Elsberger
, Valerie Speirs^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

University of Aberdeen
Addenbrooke's Hospital
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
Raigmore Hospital
Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Inflammation contributes to tumorigenesis and can be determined systemically from routine bloods collected through diagnostic workup by quantifying ratios of neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets and monocytes. Retrospective data from 104 male breast cancer (BC) patients was collected. We measured pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) and quantitatively evaluated other male BC studies. Prognostic values of NLR and PLR were assessed by overall survival (OS). Elevated NLR (≥3.23) and PLR (≥129.53) were associated with significantly decreased OS. None of the previously reported cutoffs for NLR or PLR were significant when applied to our data. NLR remained associated with worse OS in a quantitative evaluation. Relationship between BMI and pre-operative NLR, PLR, and MLR ratios showed that severely obese patients tended to have higher PLR and MLR values. In conclusion, elevated NLR and PLR were linked to poorer outcomes in male BC. While more precise cut-off values are required to fully understand the potential of these biomarkers in managing BC in men, this study suggests that NLR and PLR may affect prognosis.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	391-398
Number of pages	8
Journal	Cancer Investigation
Volume	43
Issue number	6
Early online date	31 Jul 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/07357907.2025.2523908
Publication status	Published - Jul 2025

Bibliographical note

Open Access via the Taylor and Francis Agreement

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, VS. The data are not publicly available due to containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Funding

We are grateful to the Cyril and Margaret Gates Charitable Trust for funding this work via the Aberdeen Summer Research Scholarship programme (MW).

Funders
The Cyril and Margaret Gates Charitable Trust

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

breast cancer
men
inflammatory markers
BMI

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McClurg_etal_CI_The_Prognostic_Significance_VoR
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.he terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Final published version, 1.3 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "The prognostic significance of the serum inflammatory marker ratios, neutrophil-lymphocyte, platelet-lymphocyte and monocyte-lymphocyte in male breast cancer",

abstract = "Inflammation contributes to tumorigenesis and can be determined systemically from routine bloods collected through diagnostic workup by quantifying ratios of neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets and monocytes. Retrospective data from 104 male breast cancer (BC) patients was collected. We measured pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) and quantitatively evaluated other male BC studies. Prognostic values of NLR and PLR were assessed by overall survival (OS). Elevated NLR (≥3.23) and PLR (≥129.53) were associated with significantly decreased OS. None of the previously reported cutoffs for NLR or PLR were significant when applied to our data. NLR remained associated with worse OS in a quantitative evaluation. Relationship between BMI and pre-operative NLR, PLR, and MLR ratios showed that severely obese patients tended to have higher PLR and MLR values. In conclusion, elevated NLR and PLR were linked to poorer outcomes in male BC. While more precise cut-off values are required to fully understand the potential of these biomarkers in managing BC in men, this study suggests that NLR and PLR may affect prognosis.",

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author = "McClurg, \{Dylan P.\} and Michael Wong and Tay, \{Kirsty Luo-Yng\} and Gordon Urquhart and Feng-Yi Soh and Al-Zawi, \{Abdalla Saad Abdalla\} and Beatrix Elsberger and Valerie Speirs",

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doi = "10.1080/07357907.2025.2523908",

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T1 - The prognostic significance of the serum inflammatory marker ratios, neutrophil-lymphocyte, platelet-lymphocyte and monocyte-lymphocyte in male breast cancer

AU - McClurg, Dylan P.

AU - Wong, Michael

AU - Tay, Kirsty Luo-Yng

AU - Urquhart, Gordon

AU - Soh, Feng-Yi

AU - Al-Zawi, Abdalla Saad Abdalla

AU - Elsberger, Beatrix

AU - Speirs, Valerie

N1 - Open Access via the Taylor and Francis Agreement

PY - 2025/7

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N2 - Inflammation contributes to tumorigenesis and can be determined systemically from routine bloods collected through diagnostic workup by quantifying ratios of neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets and monocytes. Retrospective data from 104 male breast cancer (BC) patients was collected. We measured pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) and quantitatively evaluated other male BC studies. Prognostic values of NLR and PLR were assessed by overall survival (OS). Elevated NLR (≥3.23) and PLR (≥129.53) were associated with significantly decreased OS. None of the previously reported cutoffs for NLR or PLR were significant when applied to our data. NLR remained associated with worse OS in a quantitative evaluation. Relationship between BMI and pre-operative NLR, PLR, and MLR ratios showed that severely obese patients tended to have higher PLR and MLR values. In conclusion, elevated NLR and PLR were linked to poorer outcomes in male BC. While more precise cut-off values are required to fully understand the potential of these biomarkers in managing BC in men, this study suggests that NLR and PLR may affect prognosis.

AB - Inflammation contributes to tumorigenesis and can be determined systemically from routine bloods collected through diagnostic workup by quantifying ratios of neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets and monocytes. Retrospective data from 104 male breast cancer (BC) patients was collected. We measured pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) and quantitatively evaluated other male BC studies. Prognostic values of NLR and PLR were assessed by overall survival (OS). Elevated NLR (≥3.23) and PLR (≥129.53) were associated with significantly decreased OS. None of the previously reported cutoffs for NLR or PLR were significant when applied to our data. NLR remained associated with worse OS in a quantitative evaluation. Relationship between BMI and pre-operative NLR, PLR, and MLR ratios showed that severely obese patients tended to have higher PLR and MLR values. In conclusion, elevated NLR and PLR were linked to poorer outcomes in male BC. While more precise cut-off values are required to fully understand the potential of these biomarkers in managing BC in men, this study suggests that NLR and PLR may affect prognosis.

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KW - men

KW - inflammatory markers

KW - BMI

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JO - Cancer Investigation

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ER -

The prognostic significance of the serum inflammatory marker ratios, neutrophil-lymphocyte, platelet-lymphocyte and monocyte-lymphocyte in male breast cancer

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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Cite this