Abstract

Background: Efforts have been made to search for parameters that facilitate the prediction of the 3-month survival for clinical decisions in patients with malignant pleural effusion (MPE). We sought to evaluate whether the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) may be a useful marker of 3-month survival in a series of consecutive patients with MPE.
Methods: A total of 81 patients with MPE were included, 46 (57%) of whom were female. Twenty-six patients (32%) died during the first 3 months according to thoracentesis data.
Results: The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was 0.73 for PLR. Using a cutoff point of 158, patients with higher PLR values experienced higher mortality at 3 months (p = 0.001).
Conclusions: PLR was able to successfully differentiate patients with different survival at 3 months. Outcomes of the PLR (a fast and inexpensive test) could be included among the prognostic factors able to guide the personalized management of MPE.

DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2020.191267