Clinicopathological and prognostic value of preoperative lymphocyte to monocyte ratio for hepatocellular carcinoma following curative resection: A meta-analysis including 4,092 patients

Previous studies have reported that lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) had novel prognostic value in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The purpose of this meta-analysis was to synthetically evaluate the prognostic role of preoperative LMR in HCC patients following curative resection. Eligible studies were acquired through searching Pubmed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and EMbase update to September 2019. Merged hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were applied as effect sizes. A total of ten studies containing 4,092 patients following liver resection were enrolled in this meta-analysis. The pooled results demonstrated that preoperative elevated LMR indicated superior survival outcome (HR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.34-0.96, P = .035) and recurrence-free survival (RFS)/disease-free survival/time to recurrence (HR = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.58-0.98, P = .034). The significant prognostic role of preoperative LMR was detected in the subgroup of all publication year, country of origin, sample sizes