Dudani S, et al. - In this review, researchers studied patients receiving neoadjuvant chemoradiation (nCRT) followed by surgery for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) across 8 Canadian cancer centres to determine the value of baseline neutrophil- and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratios (NLR and PLR) as predictors of response to nCRT or prognostic of outcomes in LARC. The disease-free survival (DFS)/overall survival (OS) analysis was performed with 1237 (81%) of 1527 identified patients having a median age of 62 (range 23–88). Of the study sample, 69% were male and performance status 0–1 was present in 80%. Elevated NLR (≥ 4) and elevated PLR (≥ 150) was seen in 26% and 66%, respectively. Fluoropyrimidine-based nCRT was administered to 97% of patients, with 96% receiving ≥44 Gy. In this study, no independent prognostic value for DFS or OS was displayed by NLR and PLR as well as neither of these hematologic variables predicted for pathological complete response in patients with LARC undergoing nCRT followed by surgery.