Diagnostic Value of Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio in Prediction of the Cellular Nature of Breast Mass

Mohammad Ali  Raisolsadat; Ali Mirsadeghi; Behrouz Hooshmand; Arezou Mirzaeian; Mohammad Javad Ghamari; Tooraj Zandbaf

doi:10.18502/jimc.v6i2.12248

Mohammad Ali Raisolsadat Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran
Ali Mirsadeghi Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran
Behrouz Hooshmand Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran
Arezou Mirzaeian Innovative Medical Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran
Mohammad Javad Ghamari Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran
Tooraj Zandbaf Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/jimc.v6i2.12248

Keywords: Breast cancer, Breast neoplasms, CBC, Neutrophil-to- lymphocyte ratio

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer, the most common cancer in women, has a significant challenge in the early diagnosis of medicine. This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in differentiating benign and malignant breast masses by an economical and straightforward test of Complete Blood Count (CBC).

Methods: This study was a retrospective cross-sectional that was performed on 75 patients with breast masse (40 had benign breast mass and 35 had malignant mass). Data was obtained from the patient’s hospital sheets with health ministry ethics permission. This information was demographic data including CBC, CBC diff, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, BMI, and pathologic results of biopsies. Data were analyzed by chi-square, Mann-Whitney, fisher’s exact tests, t-test, and ROC maps in SPSS version 16 software.

Results: The diagnostic power of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in the diagnosis of malignant tumor or benign according to the cut-off point was 1.74, and significant. Sensitivity and specificity were 85.71 and 45%, respectively, and their positive and negative predictive value was also found to be 57.76 and 78.26%, respectively, and the overall accuracy of the test was 64%.
Conclusion: The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio has high sensitivity and low specificity that can help identify positive malignant breast masses. Due to the low specificity, the negative results, however, cannot detect the nature of breast masses with high precision. Therefore, this test is considered a preliminary method that is complementary to other more explicit tests used for the identification of malignant breast masses.