Subtypes of White Blood Cells in Patients with Prostate Cancer or Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia and Healthy Individuals

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the baseline white blood cell (WBC), neutrophil, lymphocyte,monocyte, basophil, eosinophil count, total prostate-specific antigen (TPSA), free PSA (FPSA) level, neutrophilto-lymphocyte and neutrophil-to-monocyte ratios among patients with prostate cancer and benign prostatichyperplasia (BPH), as well as healthy individuals. Materials and
Methods: 2005-2012 laboratory files of 160patients with prostate cancer at Kayseri Training and Research Hospital, Oncology Outpatient Clinic, 285patients who were pathologically diagnosed with BPH in Urology Outpatient Clinic and 200 healthy individualswho were admitted to Internal Medicine Outpatient Clinic were retrospectively analyzed. Baseline WBC,neutrophil, lymphocyte, monocyte, basophil, eosinophil count, TPSA, FPSA level, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratioand neutrophil-to-monocyte ratio were recorded and compared across groups.
Results: Patients with prostatecancer had a lower lymphocyte level compared to the patients with BPH and healthy controls (p<0.001). Themean monocyte count, leukocyte-to-monocyte ratio, and leukocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio were higher in patientswith prostate cancer, but without significance. The mean WBC and leukocyte count were lower in patients withprostate cancer, but again without statistical significance (p=0.130). The mean TPSA and FPSA were 39.4 and5.67, respectively in patients with prostate cancer, while they were 5.78 and 1.28 in patients with BPH. There wasa significant difference in the mean TPSA and FPSA levels between the patient groups (p<0.001).
Conclusions:Our study results showed that patients with prostate cancer had a lower level of lymphocytes, neutrophils andWBCs and a higher level of monocytes with a significant difference in lymphocyte count, compared to healthycontrols. We suggest that lymphocyte count may be used in combination with other parameters in the diagnosisof prostate cancer, thanks to its ease of assessment.