• Shuwen Lin, Ye Lin, Yinghua Fang, Zhikang Mo, Xiaocheng Hong, Chenggang Ji, and Zhixiang Jian.
• Department of General Surgery.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Jan 22; 100 (3): e24153.

BackgroundPrevious 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.MethodsEligible 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.ResultsA 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 <300, TNM stage of I-IV and LMR cut-off value ≤4. Furthermore, high LMR was significantly associated with male, high AFP, large tumor size, incomplete tumor capsule, advanced TNM stage and BCLC stage, and presence of PVTT.ConclusionElevated preoperative LMR indicated superior survival outcome in HCC patients following curative resection, and might serve as a novel prognostic biomarker.Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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