Blood Biomarkers May Help ID Primary CNS Lymphoma, High-Grade Glioma

MONDAY, April 18, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Systemic inflammatory biomarkers may aid in differentiating primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) from high-grade glioma (HGG), according to a study published online April 4 in CNS Oncology.

Tejpal Gupta, M.D., from the Homi Bhabha National Institute in Mumbai, India, and colleagues calculated systemic inflammatory indices from pretreatment complete blood counts and liver function tests and compared them against histopathology as a reference standard among 42 patients with PCNSL and 16 with HGG.

The researchers observed significant differences in the mean values for absolute lymphocyte count and prognostic nutritional index between PCNSL and HGG patients. For absolute lymphocyte count and prognostic nutritional index, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve in the diagnosis of PCNSL was 0.70 and 0.72, respectively, indicating fair and acceptable diagnostic accuracy.

"This exploratory first-of-a kind study assessed the utility of systemic inflammatory biomarkers derived from routine blood investigations in a cohort of patients with suspected PCNSL to differentiate them reliably from HGG with similar morphologic imaging," the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text