PURPOSE: This systematic review and meta-analysis assessed the prognostic value of preoperative blood-based biomarkers in patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) treated with nephroureterectomy. METHODS: PUBMED, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Scopus databases were searched in June 2019 according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis statement. Studies were deemed eligible if they compared cancer-specific survival in UTUC patients with and without pretreatment laboratory abnormalities. Formal meta-analyses were performed for this outcome. RESULTS: The review identified 54 studies with 23,118 patients, of these, 52 studies with 22,513 patients were eligible for the meta-analysis. Several preoperative blood-based biomarkers were significantly associated with cancer-specific survival as follows: neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (pooled hazard ratio [HR]: 1.66, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.34-2.06), C-reactive protein (pooled HR: 1.17, 95% CI: 1.07-1.29), platelet-lymphocyte ratio (pooled HR: 1.68, 95% CI: 1.30-2.17), white blood cell (pooled HR: 1.58, 95% CI: 1.02-2.46), De Ritis ratio (pooled HR: 2.40, 95% CI: 1.92-2.99), fibrinogen (pooled HR: 2.23, 95% CI: 1.86-2.68), albumin-globulin ratio (pooled HR: 3.00, 95% CI: 1.87-4.84), hemoglobin (pooled HR: 1.51, 95% CI: 1.22-1.87), and estimate glomerular filtration rate (pooled HR: 1.52, 95% CI: 1.19-1.94). The Cochrane's Q test and I2 test revealed significant heterogeneity for neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, C-reactive protein, white blood cell, hemoglobin, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (P = 0.022; I2 = 50.7%, P = 0.000; I2 = 80.4%, P = 0.000; I2 = 88.3%, P = 0.010; I2 = 62.0%, P = 0.000; I2 = 83.9%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Several pretreatment laboratory abnormalities in patients with UTUC were associated with increased risks of cancer-specific mortality. Therefore, blood-based biomarkers may have the potential to serve as prognostic factors to assist patients and physicians in selecting appropriate treatment strategies for UTUC. However, considering the study limitations including heterogeneity and retrospective nature of the primary data, the conclusions should be interpreted with caution.

Department of Urology Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Urology Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria; Department of Urology Medical University of Hamburg Hamburg Germany

Department of Urology Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria; Department of Urology The Jikei University School of Medicine Tokyo Japan

Department of Urology Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria; Institute for Urology and Reproductive Health 1 M Sechenov 1st Moscow State Medical University Moscow Russia; Department of Urology Weill Cornell Medical College New York NY USA; Department of Urology University of Texas Southwestern Dallas TX USA; Karl Landsteiner Institute of Urology and Andrology Vienna Austria; Department of Urology 2nd Faculty of Medicine Charles University Prague Czech Republic

Department of Urology Medical University of Vienna Vienna Austria; Research Center for Evidence Based Medicine Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Tabriz Iran

Department of Urology The Jikei University School of Medicine Tokyo Japan

References provided by Crossref.org

Case report: Radical robotic nephroureterectomy after chemotherapy followed by avelumab in a patient with node-positive UTUC

Clinical value of cholinesterase in patients treated with radical nephroureterectomy for upper urinary tract carcinoma

Expression Analysis and Mutational Status of Histone Methyltransferase KMT2D at Different Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma Locations

Prognostic role of the systemic immune-inflammation index in upper tract urothelial carcinoma treated with radical nephroureterectomy: results from a large multicenter international collaboration