Lymphocytopenia is a main sensitive risk factor of primary liver cancer complicated with bacterial infections

Abstract

Abstract As we known immunity and inflammation play an important role in primary liver cancer (PLC) development. Through retrospective analysis of patients with or with PLC in our center in order to analyze the clinical features of circulating cytokines, immunoglobulin, complement and leukocyte subsets in patients with primary liver cancer (PLC) with or without bacterial infections (BIs). Propensity score matching (PSM) to adjust differences in baseline characteristics. The possible confounding risk factors for PLC-BIs during hospitalization were been explored by multivariate logistic regression model analysis and area under the ROC curve (AUC) to analyze the sensitivity and specificity of the risk factors of hepatitis B patients with PLC-BIs. 225 patients with chronic B hepatitis in hospitalization were been enrolled. After PSM, patients with PLC were higher incidence of BIs (25.0% vs. zero, p = 0.004) and lower lymphocytes count and subsets (p < 0.001) whether or not with BIs. The percentage of lymphocytes [Odds ratio (OR) = 0.82, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.73–0.93, p = 0.002] was the independent risk factors for patients with PLC-BIs. The AUC of the percentage of lymphocytes was 0.806 (95%CI: 0.71–0.88, p < 0.0001), the sensitivity was 82.4% and specificity was 83.6% when the levels of the levels of percentage of lymphocytes lower 15.9%. We may safely concluded that patients with PLC decreased immunity and increased some inflammatory cytokines, were easy to merge BIs. Furthermore, lymphocytopenia is the main risk factor of PLC complicated with BIs.