Objectives Ovarian cancer is the second leading cause of gynecological mortality at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos Nigeria. The neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR), a general measure of inflammation is a simple cost-effective method that has been used in both the diagnosis and prognostication of solid tumors including ovarian cancer. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between NLR and serum CA-125 levels in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in Lagos.

Methods This was a cross-sectional study in which forty-five consenting patients with suspected ovarian malignancy scheduled for staging laparotomy were recruited between April 2016 and December 2017 at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Blood samples were collected preoperatively for full blood counts and serum CA-125 estimations. Twenty-three had histologic diagnosis of EOC. NLR was defined as the absolute neutrophil count divided by the absolute lymphocyte count. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. The correlation between NLR and CA-125 levels was determined using the Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Elevated NLR was defined as a value ≥ 2.23.

Results The mean age of the participants was 51.43± 11.08 years .The median serum CA-125 level was 264 IU/L and the interquartile range was 97.3–554.4. The NLRs ranged from 1.4 to 3.6 with a median value of 2.23. There was no correlation between NLR and CA-125 (r=0.198, p=0.364).

Conclusions Though this study did not demonstrate any relationship between NLR and CA-125 in patients with EOC, it may find usefulness as a biomarker in the future if subjected to further research.