HG-114: NEUTROPHIL LYMPHOCYTE COUNT RATIO (NLCR) IN PREDICTING THE HISTOLOGICAL GRADE OF PAEDIATRIC GLIAL TUMOURS

INTRODUCTION: Neutrophil Lymphocyte Count Ratio (NLCR) is an established prognostic marker for renal, lung and colorectal carcinomas, and has been suggested to be predictive of histological grade in adult glial tumours. The purpose of this study was to determine the prognostic impact of pre-operative NLCR in paediatric glial tumours. METHODS: Retrospective analysis at a single centre. Patients less than 18 years old at the time of surgery who underwent tumour-related procedures from 2006-2015. Pre-operative NLCRs were matched with histological diagnosis for each patient. RESULTS: A total of 112 paediatric patients (71 males and 41 females) aged 8 ± 4 years, with a diagnosis of primary glial tumours had pre-operative NLCR that could be matched to final histological grade. WHO Grade 1 and 2 tumours (‘low grade’, n = 53) had a mean NLCR of 2.42 (95% CI 1.80-3.04) compared to a mean NLCR of 3.56 (95% CI 2.71-4.41) for Grade 3 and 4 tumours (‘high grade’, n = 59), which was statistically significant (p = 0.035). One-way ANOVA showed a statistically significant variance for NLCR between each grade of tumour. The NLCR for Medulloblastoma was significantly higher (4.06) compared to the low grade cohort (2.42) which was also statistically significant (p = 0.02). CONCLUSION: No evidence exists to support or refute the effectiveness of NLCR to predict histological diagnosis in paediatric glial tumours. Our preliminary results are consistent with published literature on adult tumours and suggest that a larger pre-operative NLCR may correlate with a higher final histological grade.