There still remains the need for a reliable biomarker to predict outcomes for advanced kidney cancer patients. Scientists have been working hard to try to identify biomarkers that can predict clinical outcomes and the course of the disease in people with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

A recent study published in Pathology Oncology Research this month evaluated three inflammatory biomarkers in the blood and their ability to predict outcomes for metastatic RCC patients. They looked at the ratios of various immune cells in the blood, such as neutrophils-to-lymphocytes, platelets-to-lymphocytes and a combination of platelet count and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in 276 metastatic mRCC patients treated with first-line pazopanib or sunitinib.

They found that a high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (> 3.5) and a high platelet count and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (> 200) were associated with poor overall survival in patients with metastatic RCC treated with first-line pazopanib or sunitinib.

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