Nora I, et al. – Investigators examined the utility of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in predicting the presence of regional nodal disease, metastasis, and systemic recurrence in patients with gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies. Using a complete blood count, researchers determined NLR and PLR values in patients who had undergone surgery for a GI malignancy. Findings showed that patients with advanced GI malignancies and recurrences after surgery could be identified via elevated NLR and PLR values. They found that failure of normalization of NLR and PLR 3-month post-surgical resection suggested early recurrence or persistent disease. For the purpose of distinguishing metastatic disease and node positivity, individually, NLR was found to have a higher sensitivity and negative predictive value while PLR was found to have a higher specificity and positive predictive value. These results suggested that, among all GI malignancies, advanced disease may be predicted with the highest accuracy using NLR in combination with PLR.