Blood neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio as a predictor in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma treated with hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy

Aim Inflammation plays a critical role in cancer. The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) on patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC). Methods We retrospectively evaluated 266 patients with advanced HCC treated with HAIC between March 2003 and December 2012. NLR was calculated from the differential leukocyte count by dividing the absolute neutrophil count by the absolute lymphocyte count. Results The cut‐off level of NLR was set as the median value of 2.87 among all patients in this study. The objective response rate in the patients with low NLR was 37.6%, which was significantly better than that of the patients with high NLR (21.1%; P