Xin Wang,1,2,* Feifei Teng,2,3,* Li Kong,2 Jinming Yu2 1School of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Jinan–Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, 2Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, 3School of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Background: The inflammatory response indexes, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), have prognostic value for a variety of cancers. However, their prognostic value for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) has been rarely reported. In this study, we monitored changes of NLR and PLR along with the clinical outcomes in patients with limited-stage and extensive-stage SCLC who received standard treatments. Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 153 patients who were pathologically diagnosed with SCLC and collected their hematological data at different time points during disease and treatment process. Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards models were used to determine the prognostic significance of NLR and PLR for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Results: The median OS and PFS for all patients were 23.3 months and 11.0 months, respectively. After applying cutoffs of 3.2 for NLR and 122.7 for PLR, NLR, but not PLR, showed independent prognostic significance. High-NLR group was associated with shorter median OS (high vs low, 18.0 months vs 31.0 months, P