• 1. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Xuzhou Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210008, P.R.China;
  • 2. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medicine School, , Nanjing, Jiangsu 210008, P.R.China;
  • 3. Nanjing Lishui Zhetang Health Center, Nanjing, Jiangsu 211200, P.R.China;
  • 4. Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Yancheng Branch of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Yancheng, Jiangsu 224000, , P.R.China;
ZHUANG Yi, Email: drzy78@163.com
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Objective  To investigate the changes of platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) complicated by lung cancer, and to explore the adjunctive diagnostic value of PLR for identifying lung cancer in patients with IPF.Methods  A retrospective analysis was performed in 530 patients with IPF treated at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital from January 2016 to September 2022, including 361 patients with IPF alone and 169 patients with IPF complicated by lung cancer. PLR was calculated from routine blood tests. ROC curves were used to evaluate the discriminative performance of PLR and related markers for lung cancer in patients with IPF. Results  PLR, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), neuron-specific enolase (NSE), and cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA 21-1) were significantly higher in patients with IPF complicated by lung cancer than in those with IPF alone. Multivariate logistic regression showed that PLR (OR=1.013, 95%CI 1.008–1.017), CEA (OR=1.067, 95%CI 1.030–1.106), and NSE (OR=1.046, 95%CI 1.018–1.074) were independently associated with lung cancer in IPF patients. Restricted cubic spline analysis demonstrated a linear dose-response relationship between PLR and lung cancer risk in IPF patients. The incidence of lung cancer increased across PLR tertiles (16.4% vs. 35.2% vs. 44.1%, P<0.01). ROC analysis showed that the AUC of PLR was 0.711 (95%CI 0.664–0.758, P<0.001), and the optimal cutoff, sensitivity, specificity, and Youden index were 115.80, 65.2%, 62.1%, and 0.273, respectively. The discriminative ability of PLR alone was moderate. The combined model including PLR, CEA, NSE, and CYFRA 21-1 yielded an AUC of 0.782 (95%CI 0.739–0.825, P<0.001). Conclusions  PLR is elevated in IPF patients with lung cancer and is associated with the presence of lung cancer. However, PLR alone shows only moderate discriminative ability and should not be interpreted as a standalone diagnostic marker. The combination of PLR with CEA, NSE, and CYFRA 21-1 may improve adjunctive identification of lung cancer in patients with IPF.

Citation: ZHANG Qiang, YAN Xin, QI Zihui, CAO Min, ZHUANG Yi. Clinical significance of platelet to lymphocyte ratio in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis combined with lung cancer. Chinese Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2026, 25(4): 269-274. doi: 10.7507/1671-6205.202507014 Copy

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