Use the Complete Blood Counts and Esr as Biomarkers Prognostic Tool in Breast Cancer Patients Attending Surgery Department at Esut Teaching Hospital, Parklane Enugu Nigeria

Background: Full blood count is a prerequisite investigation requested from all breast cancer patients before and during treatment.Poor parameters adversely influence the outcome of cancers.

Objective: This study investigated the use of Complete Blood Count (CBC) and Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) as biomarker prognostic tool in breast cancer subjects.

Methods: The sample size comprised of 110 female subjects and controls with ages between 21-70 years. A longitudinal study method was used. The samples were collected from apparently healthy individuals as control, pre-treatment at diagnosis and the treatment samples at different stages of the treatment. Questionnaire used obtained other demographic information. The data was analyzed with IBM SPSS PC. Version 20.0; SPSS Inc., Chicago, III., USA.

Results: Results showed that increased Neutrophil/Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) and decreased Lymphocyte / Monocyte Ratio (LMR) were significantly associated with increased hazard ratio (HR) and decreased OS at p<0.05 while Platelet/Lymphocyte Ratio ( PLR) had no significant difference at P>0.05 in Breast Cancer. In CBC and ESR, control, pre-treatment and treatment period, red blood cell (RBC) parameters and total white blood cell (TWBC) parameters decreased significantly at p<0.05 in treatment results compared to the pre-treatment and control results while others showed no significant increase at p<0.05 in treatment results compared to pre-treatment results. Treatment red cell distribution width (RDW) and mean platelet volume (MPV) observed a significant increase (p<0.05) compared to the control and pre-treatment results. Age group 21-30 years showed more susceptibility than other age groups with lowest mean±SD in CBC and ESR but with no significant difference at p>0.05.

Conclusion: This study supports the concept that biomarkers such as CBC and ESR can be used as a prognostic tool in early detection, treatment and monitoring of the disease progression in these subjects