Is neutrophyl to lymphocyte ratio really a useful marker for all grades of degenerative aortic stenosis?

• Main Authors: Selçuk Küçükseymen, Göksel Çağırcı, Ramazan Güven, Şakir Arslan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KARE Publishing 2017-09-01
• Series: Türk Kardiyoloji Derneği Arşivi
• Subjects: aortic stenosis; biomarker; echocardiography; inflammatory process; neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio.
• Online Access: https://jag.journalagent.com/z4/download_fulltext.asp?pdir=tkd&un=TKDA-32389

Objective: Inflammatory processes play an important role in cardiac valve calcification and ossification. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and degenerative aortic stenosis (AS). Methods: A total of 220 patients with AS and 158 healthy individuals who were a control group were included in the study. The NLR was calculated by dividing the number of neutrophils by number of lymphocytes in peripheral blood samples. Results: The study group consisted of 220 AS patients (mild/moderate group: n=110; severe group: n=110) and 157 healthy controls. Both the mild/moderate AS group (p<0.001) and the severe AS group (p<0.001) had a significantly higher NLR compared with the control group. The NLR in the severe AS group was significantly higher than that of the mild/moderate AS group (p<0.001). The groups were similar with respect to other baseline characteristics. A receiver operating characteristic curve analysis yielded a strong predictive ability of NLR for the presence of AS (Area under the curve=0.930; 95% CI [confidence interval], 0.898–0.963; p<0.001). A cut-off value of 2.310 for NLR had a sensitivity and specificity of 80.4% and 92.4%, respectively, for the presence of AS. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, NLR (Odds ratio: 43.8; 95% CI, 14.7–130.7) was the only independent predictor of AS. Conclusion: The discriminative performance of NLR for AS is high. NLR is strongly and independently associated with AS.