Glasgow Prognostic Score Is Superior to Other Inflammation-Based Scores in Predicting Survival of Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

Inflammation-based prognostic scores, such as the glasgow prognostic score (GPS), prognostic index(PI), prognostic nutritional index(PNI), neutrophil lymphocyte ratio(NLR), platelet lymphocyte ratio(PLR) was related to survival in many solid tumors. Recent study showed that GPS can be used to predict outcome in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma(DLBCL). However other inflammation related scores had not been reported in DLBCL, and it also remained unknown which of them was more useful to evaluate the survival in DLBCL. In this retrospective study, a number of 252 newly diagnosed and histologically proven DLBCL patients from January 2003 to December 2014 were included. An elevated GPS, PI, NLR, PNI and PLR were all associated with decreased overall survival(p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.006, p=0.001 and p=0.001, respectively) and event-free survival (p=0.000, p=0.000, p=0.011, p=0.001 and p=0.009, respectively) in univariate analysis. Multivariate analysis indicated that GPS(RR=1.768, 95%CI=1.043-3.000, p=0.034) remained an independent prognostic predictor in DLBCL. The area under the curve of GPS (0.735, 95%CI=0.645-0.824) was greater than that of PI(0.710, 95%CI=0.621-0.799), PNI(0.600, 95%CI=0.517-0.683), NLR(0.572, 95%CI=0.503-0.642), and PLR(0.599, 95%CI=0.510-0.689) by Harrell's C-statistics. Especially in the DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP, GPS also remained the most powerful inflammation-based prognostic score when comparing with PI, NLR, PNI and PLR (p=0.004, p=0.000, respectively for OS and EFS). In conclusion, these results indicate that Inflammation-based prognostic scores such as GPS, PI, NLR, PNI and PLR can be used to evaluate the outcome in DLBCL patients. Among them, GPS is the most powerful tool in predicting survival in DLBCL patients, even in the rituximab era.