Abstract

Inflammation plays a crucial role in cancer development. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), a measure of inflammation, is obtained from a complete blood count. However, little is known about the association between NLR and cancer in the general adult population in the United States. This study aimed to evaluate whether NLR is associated with cancer in American adults. This retrospective cross-sectional study included 28,016 adult participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset spanning 2005 to 2018. Data on demographics (age, sex, race, marital status, Poverty-Income Ratio, education level), lifestyle factors (smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index), medical conditions (hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease), and laboratory parameters (hemoglobin, platelet count, alanine aminotransferase, creatinine, albumin, and lactate dehydrogenase), were collected. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the research objectives. Of the total 28,016 participants, 2639 had cancer. The mean age was 49.6 ± 17.6 years, and 50% were male. A positive association between NLR and cancer risk was observed after multivariate adjustment (OR = 1.20, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.05–1.36, p = 0.006). Similar patterns were observed in subgroup analyses (all p-values for interaction > 0.05). A higher NLR was directly correlated with an increased risk of developing cancer in adults.

Details

Title
Association between the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and cancer in adults from NHANES 2005–2018: a cross-sectional study
Author
Li, Gang-Ping 1 ; Zhang, Di 1 ; Li, Ming-Hui 1 ; Yuan, Fang-Fang 1 ; Hou, Xin-Jiang 2 ; He, Dong-Jie 3 ; Wei, Xu-Dong 1 ; Fu, Yue-Wen 1 

 The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University & Henan Cancer Hospital, Department of Hematology, Zhengzhou, China (GRID:grid.414008.9) (ISNI:0000 0004 1799 4638) 
 Xi’an International University, College of Medicine, Xi’an, China (GRID:grid.495242.c) (ISNI:0000 0004 5914 2492) 
 Tangdu Hospital, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University, Department of Radiation Oncology, Xi’an, China (GRID:grid.460007.5) (ISNI:0000 0004 1791 6584) 
Pages
23678
Publication year
2024
Publication date
2024
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3115237213
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.