ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the predictive value of C-reactive protein (CRP), neutrophils-lymphocytes ratio (NLR) and leukocyte-erythrocyte ratio (LER) for aspiration pneumonia (AP) in patients with acute cerebral infarction (ACI).Methods:Retrospective analysis was performed on 989 consecutive hospitalized ACI patients in 2021 who were free of infection within 48 h after ACI onset. General information, past medical history, CRP and complete blood count within 24 h after admission were collected. NLR and LER were calculated based on neutrophil, lymphocyte, leukocyte and erythrocyte count. ACI patients were divided into two groups: non-AP group ( n = 883) and AP group ( n = 106) according to whether they had AP 48 h after admission. Spearman correlations of CRP, NLR and LER with AP were analyzed. The receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to evaluate the predictive values of CRP, NLR and LER for the occurrence of AP in ACI patients, and the sensitivity and specificity at the optimal cut-off value were also calculated. Logistic regression analysis was used for further verification. Results:Compared with the non-AP group, CRP, NLR and LER were significantly higher in the AP group ( P<0.05). Spearman correlation analysis showed that AP was positively correlated with CRP, NLR and LER ( r = 0.42, 0.36 and 0.35, P<0.01). ROC curve analysis showed that CRP, NLR and LER had certain predictive value for AP in ACI patients ( P<0.05), and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.8917, 0.8349 and 0.8269, respectively. The optimal cutoff values of CRP, NLR and LER were 12.70 mg/L, 4.40 and 1.89 ×10 -3, respectively, with the sensitivity and specificity of 79.25% and 86.41%, 71.70% and 84.94%, and 75.47% and 79.95%, respectively. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that CRP ( OR=6.65, 95% CI: 3.70-11.98, β=1.90, P<0.001), NLR ( OR=2.84,95% CI: 1.60-5.03, β=1.04, P<0.001) and LER ( OR=3.51, 95% CI: 2.00-6.16, β=1.26, P<0.001) were independent risk factors for AP in ACI patients. Conclusions:CRP, NLR and LER at baseline show certain predictive value for the occurrence of AP in ACI patients, and CRP has the strongest predictive power.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE@#Loss of response (LOR) has become an important clinical problem in patients with Crohn's disease receiving infliximab (IFX) treatment. Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been shown to correlate with the activity of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and NLR at the 14th week of IFX therapy potentially allows the prediction of sustained response to IFX in Crohn's patients. The aim of this study was to explore whether NLR at the 14th week of IFX therapy could predict the occurrence of LOR to IFX in Crohn's patients.@*METHODS@#Between January, 2012 and December, 2016, 54 patients with Crohn's disease underwent a 52-week treatment with IFX and successfully achieved response to the induction treatment in Zhongnan Hospital. We retrospectively examined their medical records and assessed the association between NLR at 14 weeks and LOR during IFX therapy.@*RESULTS@#Of the 54 patients, 15 (27.8%) showed LOR to IFX during the follow-up. We noted a significant increase in NLR at 14 weeks in the patients with LOR as compared with the patients with sustained response to IFX[3.51 (2.9-6.25) 1.77 (1.23-2.56), =0.00]. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis showed that at the cut-off value of 2.75, NLR at 14 weeks was predictive of LOR within 52 weeks of IFX therapy with a sensitivity of 93.33% and a specificity of 84.62%, and the area under curve (AUC) of NLR was 0.903 (0.731-0.959). Univariate analysis revealed a significant correlation between relapse-free survival and the NLR at 14 weeks (=0.00). Multivariate analysis identified NLR at 14 weeks as an independent prognostic factor for LOR with a hazard ratio of 1.851 (95% :1.096-3.026, =0.021).@*CONCLUSIONS@#NLR at the 14th week during IFX therapy is a useful predictor for LOR in patients with Crohn's disease.