ALB and cancer: Because the NLR reflects the systemic immunoinflammatory response (32) and because cachexia—a result of chronic systemic inflammation—is possibly reflected by BMI and serum albumin level (33), pretreatment ALI may reflect the underlying equilibrium of patient’s nutritional status and systemic inflammation and can predict survival outcomes for various malignant tumors (14–21) with superior discriminatory ability than the index based solely on inflammation (16, 34).