SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1576326
This article is part of the Research TopicCommunity Series in Biomarkers in the Era of Cancer Immunotherapy: Zooming in from Periphery to Tumor Microenvironment, Volume IIIView all 5 articles
The prognostic and clinicopathological value of HALP score in non-small cell lung cancer
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
- 2The Second People's Hospital of Deyang City, Deyang, Sichuan Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: The prognostic role of the hemoglobin, albumin, lymphocyte, and platelet (HALP) score in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been widely reported, but the results remain controversial. Therefore, we aim to evaluate the prognostic and clinicopathological value of the HALP score in NSCLC through a meta-analysis. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive literature search of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and the ClinicalTrials.gov databases in December 2024 to identify studies evaluating the relationship between the pretreatment HALP score and outcomes in NSCLC patients. Eligible studies included patients treated with surgical resection, chemotherapy, or immunotherapy. The HALP score was calculated using peripheral blood levels of hemoglobin, albumin, lymphocytes, and platelets measured before treatment. Data were extracted and analyzed to determine the association of the HALP score with overall survival (OS), disease/progression/recurrence-free survival (DFS/PFS/RFS), and clinicopathological characteristics. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were performed to ensure the robustness and reliability of the results. Results: A total of 10 studies involving 7024 patients were included. The results demonstrated that patients with lower pretreatment HALP score had worse OS (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.73, 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.27-2.34, p < 0.001) and DFS/PFS/RFS (HR = 1.86, 95% CI: 1.30-2.64, p < 0.001). The results remained consistent across subgroup analyses based on study characteristics and sensitivity analyses. Additionally, a lower HALP score was significantly associated with age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.15-1.78, p = 0.001) and tumor size (OR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.38-0.76, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The HALP score is a valuable prognostic biomarker for predicting survival outcomes in NSCLC patients. Its ability to integrate multiple aspects of systemic inflammation and nutritional status makes it a promising tool for improving risk stratification and guiding treatment decisions. Future studies should continue to validate this finding in prospective, multicentre trials.
Keywords: HALP score, NSCLC, prognostic, Survival, biomarker
Received: 13 Feb 2025; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Chen, Zhao and Zeng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qin Li, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.