Association of preoperative low circulating basophil counts with the prognostic factor in gastric cancer

Purpose Basophils play a crucial role in immunoglobulin E-mediated allergic reactions and parasitic infections. Recently, a low basophil count was reported to be a poor prognostic indicator in patients with malignant tumors. This study aimed to investigate the cut-off value to evaluate the clinicopathological and prognostic significance of the basophil count in patients with gastric cancer. Methods This study enrolled 1192 consecutive gastric cancer surgically treated between 2001 and 2020. The cut-off values were fixed at 26/µl based on the receiver of characteristics curves for overall survival, and 606 patients were classified as the low basophil group. The clinicopathological and prognostic significance of the low basophil count was assessed by univariate and multivariate analyses Results Elderly age ( p  = 0.009), high C-reactive protein level ( p  < 0.001), and low neutrophil count ( p  < 0.001), are independently associated with low basophil count. The low basophil group demonstrated a significantly worse overall survival than the high basophil group ( p  = 0.005). Although there was no significant difference in stage I, the low basophil group demonstrated poor overall survival in stage II/III/IV. The low basophil count was an independent risk factor for poor overall survival ( p  = 0.042). Conclusion Low basophil count was significantly associated with elderly age, high C-reactive protein level, and low neutrophil count (< 26/µl). And, low basophil count was an independent poor prognostic factor in patients with gastric cancer. Thus, preoperative circulating basophil count assessment may be useful for predicting the postoperative survival of patients with gastric cancer.