The Significance of Inflammatory Markers in the Diagnosis of Cervical Cancer
Keszthelyi Emese
Cardiovascular Medicine and Research Division
Dr. Merkely Béla
SE II. sz. Nőgyógyászati Klinika előadóterme
2026-10-30 08:00:00
Mechanisms of tissue adaptation
Dr. Várbíró Szabolcs
Dr. Tóth Richárd Gábor
Dr. Molnár Péter József
Dr. Belics Zorán
Dr. Molnár Zsolt
Dr. Mészáros Balázs
Dr. Jósvai Attila
The aim of this doctoral thesis was to identify a new screening method for cervical cancer, which causes a significant global health problem. Experience shows that this method could supplement the currently available, often limited-access options in low-income countries, where the disease—which is otherwise easily treatable—often becomes fatal due to late-stage diagnosis. Thus, we sought to find a method that is reliable, easily accessible, simple to perform, minimally invsive and cost-effective.
To address this aim, in the first part, using data from 395 patients who underwent LEEP conization, we conducted a retrospective analysis of the relationship between inflammatory indices derived from routine peripheral blood samples— the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) with the presence of cervical disease-causing HPV. Among these, NLR values showed a significant association with the p16 marker, which indicates HPV-related cervical disease. These findings highlighted the potential significance of the NLR in the detection of cervical cancer. Thus, in a subsequent study, we sought to elucidate the previously unclear diagnostic and predictive role of the NLR in patients who underwent conization for cervical cancer. The second retrospective SCOPE study compared preoperative NLR values with cytological and histopathological results from conization in 374 patients. Our findings showed that NLR values were significantly higher in cases with malignant conization results. Crucially, the analysis revealed high negative predictive value, robust sensitivity, significant specificity with a definable cutoff value.
Overall, these associations suggest that systemic inflammation contributes to HPV persistence and cervical carcinogenesis, and that NLR reflects underlying biological processes that promote neoplastic progression.
In summarizing, our study is the first to demonstrate that the NLR has shown promising practical value as a supplementary diagnostic method for risk stratification and early detection of cervical cancer. Our findings suggest that NLR may influence the reconsideration of cervical cancer screening protocols, particularly in settings where advanced diagnostic tools are not available.
