PROGNOSTIC POWER OF INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE SCORING SYSTEMS IN PERIAMPULLARY PANCREATIC CANCER: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Introduction: Assessment of systemic inflammatory response forms the basis of several scoring systems that attempt to prognosticate patients with periampullary pancreatic carcinoma (PPC). We assessed the validity of three of these scoring systems for patients’ prognosis following intervention for PPC: Glasgow prognostic score (GPS) and its modified version (mGPS), platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR).Methods: EMBASE and MEDLINE databases were searched for all published studies until September 2018 using comprehensive text word and MeSH terms. Meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology guidelines was followed. All identified studies were analysed and relevant studies were included in the review.Results: Three studies which assessed the role of GPS, four studies that evaluated the use of NLR and three that assessed the role of PLR in patients with PPC were identified. None of these studies demonstrated any value in the pre-operative assessment of patients with PPC. The limited number of studies available precluded further statistical analysis.Conclusions: Based on available evidence, GPS, NLR and PLR do not appear to be useful scoring systems to predict prognosis of patients with PPC. Larger studies are warranted before the application of inflammatory scoring systems could be recommended in patients with PPC.Key words: Periampullary cancer, Glasgow prognostic score, modified Glasgow prognostic score, platelet-lymphocyte ratio, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio