Predicting Lamina Propria Invasion in Patients with Nonmuscle- invasive Bladder Cancer: Do RDW and NLR Really Work?

Objective: To determine the role of preoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and red cell distribution width (RDW) in predicting lamina propria invasion in bladder cancer. Materials and Methods: Eighty-eight patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer were evaluated retrospectively. The patients were divided into those with Ta tumors (group 1: n=36) and those with T1 tumors (group 2: n=52). For each patient, white blood cell, neutrophil, and leukocyte counts and RDW values were evaluated. Results: NLR was significantly lower in patients with Ta tumors. In addition, NLR below 3.22 was associated with 80.6% probability of Ta disease. RDW sensitivity in Ta non-muscle-invasive bladder tumors was much higher compared to T1 tumors. RDW below 15.35 was associated with 94.4% probability of Ta disease. Conclusion: NLR and RDW are basic blood parameters that physicians can assess easily. Our results indicate that a combination of NLR and RDW can help clinicians predict lamina propria invasion in non-muscle-invasive bladder tumors.