Inflammatory burden as a prognostic biomarker for cancer

Systemic inflammation is the most representative host–tumor interaction in cancer. This study aimed to develop a novel inflammatory burden index (IBI) to assess the inflammatory burden of different cancers and predict the prognosis of patients with cancer. A total of 6359 cancer patients admitted to multiple centers from 2012 through 2019 were included in this study. The IBI was formulated as C-reaction protein × neutrophil/lymphocyte. Survival differences between the groups were compared using the Kaplan–Meier method. Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the association between the inflammatory burden index and outcomes. Cancers assessed by the IBI could be classified as high, moderate, or low inflammatory burden and had different prognostic stratification effects (46.5% vs 61.0% vs 83.0%; P