The standard treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer is neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. To select patients who would benefit the most from this treatment, there is a need for predictive biomarkers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of clinical, pathological, radiological, inflammation-related genetic, and hematological parameters in the prediction of post-nCRT response. The obtained results showed that factors associated with favorable response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy were tumor morphology and hematological parameters which can be easily and routinely derived from initial laboratory results (NMR, eosinophil, basophil and monocyte counts) in a minimally invasive manner. Using various metrics, an aggregated score of the initial eosinophil, basophil, and monocyte counts demonstrated the best predictive performance.
Congratulations to the first author Mladen Marinkovic, MD, for a great achievement and a wonderful rest of his PhD journey ahead!
