The accuracy of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and platelet to lymphocyte ratio as a marker for gastrointestinal malignancies

Elevation of NLR and PLR can be used to help identify patients with advanced disease GI malignancies and recurrences after surgery. Additionally, failure of normalization of NLR and PLR 3-month post-surgical resection may indicate early recurrence or persistent disease. Individually, NLR has a higher sensitivity and negative predictive value while PLR has a higher specificity and positive predictive value for distinguishing metastatic disease and node positivity. The combination of NLR and PLR has the highest accuracy of predicting advanced disease among all gastrointestinal malignancies.