Feng JR, et al. Diagnostic Value of Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio and Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio in Crohn’s Disease. Gastroenterol Res Pract. 2017;2017:3526460.
The aim of this study is to investigate the diagnostic efficacy of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil-to-monocyte ratio (NMR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) and non-CD controls. These ratios were all derived from complete blood counts. Two hundred and six participants including CD inpatients and non-CD controls were retrospectively enrolled. We found statistically higher NLR and PLR and lower LMR in CD patients than in non-CD controls (all P < 0.01). However, NMR was not different between the two groups (P = 0.18). In addition, NLR, PLR, and LMR were associated with CRP and ESR. Optimal cutoffs for NLR and PLR were 2.72 (sensitivity: 68.3%, specificity: 75.9%, and overall accuracy: 70.1%) and 132.88 (sensitivity: 76.7%, specificity: 84.8%, and overall accuracy: 80.8%), respectively. In conclusion, the NLR and PLR might be effective, readily available, and low-cost biomarkers for differentiating CD patients from non-CD controls.
Cherfane CE, et al. Monocytosis and a Low Lymphocyte to Monocyte Ratio Are Effective Biomarkers of Ulcerative Colitis Disease Activity. Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2015 Aug;21(8):1769-75.
Monocytosis and a low L/M ratio might be effective, readily available, and low-cost biomarkers to identify disease activity in UC patients. N/L values were more effective in distinguishing active UC patients from patients without IBD and those with C. difficile infection.
Torun S, et al. Assessment of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio in ulcerative colitis: a promising marker in predicting disease severity. Clin Res Hepatol Gastroenterol.
2012 Oct;36(5):491-7.
In this study, we evaluated NLR as a surrogate marker of disease activity in UC. Our findings revealed that patients with active UC have elevated NLR in comparison with healthy controls. NLR was also found to have decreased after remission of UC. Elevated levels of peripheral blood NLR was found to give high sensitivity, specificity and predictive values in patients with active UC, which suggests a superiority of NLR to total leucocyte and individual absolute neutrophil and lymphocyte counts. Moreover, elevated NLR values found in both active UC patients with normal and elevated WBC levels prove that NLR can be thought of as an independent diagnostic marker for estimating disease activity, irrespective of WBC levels in UC patients. We think that the predictive superiority of NLR that was found in our study can be attributed to its more stable nature compared to white blood cells alone and their individual subtypes.
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