Meta-Analysis of Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Survival in Breast Cancer Patients

Fifty-six studies involving 16,539 patients were synthesized to evaluate a blood-based biomarker. The analysis found elevated pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio was significantly associated with worse survival outcomes and lower rates of pathologic complete response. Ziqian Zhao published this systematic review and meta-analysis on figshare in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Training prognostic models based on the association between neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and overall survival.
• Validating the predictive power of inflammatory markers for disease-free survival in breast cancer.
• Analyzing treatment response by correlating biomarker levels with pathologic complete response rates.

Strengths

• Pooled data from 56 individual studies, providing a substantial evidence base.
• Reports specific hazard ratios and odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals for multiple survival outcomes.
• Includes sensitivity analyses restricted to multivariable-adjusted estimates, suggesting methodological rigor.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is a 16.7 KB document, indicating it likely contains summary statistics rather than patient-level data.
• Substantial heterogeneity and inconsistent cutoffs for the biomarker are noted in the source conclusion.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Ziqian Zhao.

Collection Method

Systematic review and meta-analysis of studies from PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library.

Time Range

Studies published up to April 2026.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-29 04:52:33; freshness should be verified.