Diagnostic Performance of Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and CA19-9 Added to EUS-FNA for Solid Pancreatic Lesions: A Single-Center Retrospective Study.
Liu Shasha S, Hu Chen C, Fan Yujing Y, Liu Lina L et al.
To evaluate the incremental diagnostic value of the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) when combined with endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in patients with solid pancreatic lesions. This retrospective single-center study included 127 consecutive patients who underwent EUS-FNA for solid pancreatic lesions between December 29, 2020, and October 23, 2023. Final diagnoses were established using a reference standard independent of the index EUS-FNA. Malignancy was confirmed by surgical pathology, independent cytologic or histologic evidence, or unequivocal radiologic progression or metastasis. Non-malignancy was established by independent benign pathology or lesion stability or regression without anticancer therapy during at least 24 months of clinical and imaging follow-up. Among 127 patients, 80 had malignant lesions and 47 had non-malignant lesions. EUS-FNA achieved an accuracy of 91.3%, sensitivity of 93.8%, specificity of 87.2%, positive predictive value of 92.6%, and negative predictive value of 89.1%. CA19-9 levels were significantly higher in malignant than in non-malignant lesions (median [IQR], 197.21 [9.51-928.36] vs 14.30 [3.97-211.02] U/mL; P=0.001), with an AUC of 0.692. The PLR plus CA19-9 model yielded an apparent AUC of 0.734 and an optimism-corrected AUC of 0.717. The EUS-FNA plus PLR plus CA19-9 model showed the highest discrimination, with an apparent AUC of 0.986 (bootstrap 95% CI, 0.962-1.000) and an optimism-corrected AUC of 0.981; the corresponding Brier scores were 0.033 and 0.041. EUS-FNA demonstrated high diagnostic accuracy for solid pancreatic lesions. PLR and CA19-9 provided complementary diagnostic value, and the three-variable model showed high diagnostic performance after internal validation.