Prognostic significance of elevated pretreatment systemic inflammatory markers for patients with prostate cancer: a meta-analysis

Background Pretreatment inflammatory factors, including neutrophil, lymphocyte, platelet and monocyte counts as well as the ratios between them such as neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet–lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and lymphocyte–monocyte ratio (LMR) have been suggested as potential prognostic predictors for patients with prostate cancer (PCa). However, the prognostic effects remain controversial. Therefore, the goal of this study was evaluate the prognostic values of these markers for PCa patients using a meta-analysis.