An increase in the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio during adjuvant chemotherapy indicates a poor prognosis in patients with stage II or III gastric cancer

Table 4 Relationship between clinical factors and OS in GC patients treated with S-1 adjuvant chemotherapy

Factors	N = 100	Univariate analysis	Multivariate analysis
Factors	N = 100	P-valuea	HR (95% CI)b	P-valueb
Sex (M/F)	73/27	0.417
Age (< 65/≥65 years)	41/59	0.558
Tumor size (< 60/≥60 mm)	48/52	0.008*	3.115 (1.230–7.889)	0.017
Histologic type (Diff/Undiff)	35/65	0.005*	4.472 (1.308–15.287)	0.017
pT (1/2/3/4)	5/12/41/42	0.366
pN (0/1/2/3)	14/25/31/30	0.023
pStage (II/III)	39/61	0.043
pNLR (+/−)	50/50	0.018
pPLR (+/−)	50/50	0.074
iNLR (+/−)	26/74	0.455
iPLR (+/−)	50/50	0.308
fNLR (+/−)	38/62	< 0.001*	6.736 (2.420–18.748)	< 0.001
fPLR (+/−)	35/65	0.004*
CEA (< 5.0/≥5.0 ng/ml)	26/74	0.118
CA19–9 (< 37.0/≥37.0 U/ml)	18/82	0.262

M, male; F, female; Diff, differentiated type; Undiff, undifferentiated type; pT, pN, pStage = pathological T stage, N stage. Pathological cancer stage according to the 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Cancer Staging Manual; pNLR or pPLR, preoperative neutrophil or platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio; iNLR and iPLR, the ratio of the NLR or PLR on the initial day of adjuvant chemotherapy to the pNLR or pPLR; fNLR and fPLR, the ratio of the NLR or PLR on the final day of adjuvant chemotherapy to the iNLR or iPLR; CEA, carcinoembryonic antigen; CA19–9, carbohydrate antigen 19–9; ^aLog-rank test; ^bCox proportional hazards model; *P-value indicates statistical significance after false discovery rate correction

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