Does Neutrophil Lymphocyte Ratio Have a Clinical Value to Determine the Severity of the Patients with Acute Appendicitis?

Abstract

Aim: The aim of our study is to investigate the predictive value of the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) assessed in the emergency department to distinguish complicated and uncomplicated patients with acute appendicitis (AA). Materials and Methods: In our study, the files of the patients with AA who visited our emergency clinic between 01.06.2015 and 01.01.2016 and then were operated in our hospital were reviewed retrospectively. The age, gender, the imaging method performed in the emergency clinic with an AA preliminary diagnosis, the result of the radiologic report in terms of AA and histopathological examination results were recorded according to the patients' records. The patients were divided into two groups: Complicated AA ( group 1) and uncomplicated AA (group 2) based on their histopathological analysis results. The laboratory parameters of the patients, which were seen within the first 30 minutes after they visited the emergency clinic, were examined. Results: One hundred and twenty one of the 154 patients who were involved in the study were in group 1 and 33 of the patients were in group 2. A statistically significant difference was found between two groups in terms of the number of white blood cells and NLR (p=0.000). The cut-off value for NLR in the complicated AA distinction was detected as 7.3 (75.8% sensitivity, 81.8% specifity). Conclusion: As an easy and effective analysis method, we think that NLR might be a good guide to diagnose complicated patients with AA quickly.