The effect of neutrophil lymphocyte ratio on prognosis in malignant germ cell ovarian tumors

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), which has not been studied in the literature in rare malignant germ cell ovarian tumors, and to evaluate the prognostic significance of NLR in malignant germ cell ovarian tumors. Materials and Methods: The study was a retrospective review of patients who underwent surgery at Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa-Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Gynecologic Oncology and whose pathology was malignant germ cell ovarian tumor. Istanbul Hospitals Automation Project (ISHOP) system and Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa-Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Gynecologic Oncology archive were used to search the files. IBM SPSS 28 package program was used for statistical analysis. Results: The study included 44 patients with pathologically proven malignant germ cell ovarian tumors. The NLR cut-off value was determined as 3.69 by Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. The effect of preoperative NLR value on overall survival was found to be significant. The overall survival in the group with NLR≥3.69 (153.2 months) was significantly lower than the group with NLR<3.69 (234 months). Disease-free survival did not differ significantly (p>0.05) between the group with NLR≥3.69 (159.3 months) and the group with NLR<3.69 (215 months). Conclusion: NLR has been found to be associated with many clinicopathological features in malignant germ cell ovarian tumors. The significant association of NLR with overall survival showed that NLR can be used as a prognostic marker in malignant germ cell ovarian tumors with unclear prognostic factors. There was no significant association between disease-free survival and NLR, but the p value of this association was 0.096 and a larger sample size may yield significant results. Key Words: germ cells, ovarian cancers, survival, neutrophils, lymphocyt