Hepatology and Pancreatic Science

Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio: Predictive marker for assessing the severity of ulcerative colitis?

Abstract

Ovidiu Fratila

Introduction: Several markers are proposed along the time to assess the severity and therefore the progression of inflammatory bowel disease (UC) but they're expensive and a few of them not specific for intestinal inflammation. Thus, new simpler and cheaper tools are required to guage the severity of the disease. The aim of our study was to judge the contribution of the neutrophil/ lymphocyte ratio (NLR) for assessing the severity of UC. Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective study over a 5 year period (January 2012- December 2016), including 68 UC patients, from ambulatory or hospitalized, divided into two groups: the primary group of 23 patients (33.8%) with active disease and also the second group of 45 patients (66.2%) of inactive UC. Disease activity was assessed using the Mayo score and therefore the data was statistically analyzed using SPSS20. Results: Mean age of patients was 39 years (19-78 yrs). Female-male ratio was 0.78 and therefore the average disease duration was 8 years. Seven cases (10.3%) were diagnosed with pancolitis. Of the 23 patients with active UC, 14 patients had mild to moderate disease and 9 patients had a severe form. In patients with inactive disease, average NLR was 2.36 (0.79 to 10.84), while in patients with active UC average NLR was 4.28 (2.18 to 11.59) with a major difference (p <0.01). No significant NLR variations were observed between the patients with mild to moderate disease and people with severe forms. Conclusion: In our study, NLR was significantly higher within the cases of active UC. this will be a useful marker within the assessing and follow from the UC activity, without giving information on the disease severity. Key words: inflammatory bowel disease, neutrophils/lymphocytes.