Abstract

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common cancer in men globally. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is used for screening and biopsy is used to confirm the diagnosis. Inflammatory markers serve as non-invasive predictors of PCa. Thus, this study was performed to evaluate the role of PSA, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and red cell distribution width (RDW) in predicting PCa. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective, observational study carried out at a tertiary care hospital for a period of two years and eight months from Oct 2019 to June 2022. It included the biopsy samples of all the male patients who underwent the transrectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy. The samples were evaluated by the histopathology section of the pathology department. In the patients suffering from confirmed prostatic carcinoma (PCa), the levels of PSA, lymphocyte, neutrophil and platelet counts before the biopsy were noted. Gleason scores were graded. NLR, PLR and RDW were evaluated. Among the non-PCa, the samples were categorized into two groups based on histological results – Prostatitis and Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Unpaired t-test and Mann Whitney U test were used as test of significance. P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Total 73 biopsy samples were evaluated. The average age of the patients was 66.48 ± 5.8 years. 55 out of 73 were non-PCa and 16 were classified as prostatic adenocarcinoma. All of the 55 non-PCa patients were classified as benign prostatic hypertrophy. PSA values were significantly higher in PCa as compared toBPH patients (p< 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in the median NLR, PLR and RDW in the BPH and PCa group. Majority (37.5%, n =6) patients were categorised into grade 3 Gleason score followed by 5 (31.25%) patients in grade 4. Also, the correlation between Gleason score and PSA, NLR, PLR and RDW was statistically insignificant in PCa patients. Conclusion: Significantly high PSA levels are seen in PCa but it is not specific for PCa. Inflammatory markers NLR, PLR, RDW does not serve as reliable indicators for diagnosis of PCa

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