Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2017; 23(21): 3883-3889
Published online Jun 7, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i21.3883
Clinical significance of the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio as an early predictive marker for adverse outcomes in patients with acute pancreatitis
Tae Joo Jeon, Ji Young Park
Tae Joo Jeon, Ji Young Park, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Inje University College of Medicine, Sanggye Paik Hospital, Seoul 01757, South Korea
Author contributions: Jeon TJ designed the study; Jeon TJ and Park JY collected and analyzed the data; Jeon TJ wrote the manuscript; Park JY supervised; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Inje University Sanggye Paik Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No other actual or potential conflict-of-interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ji Young Park, MD, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Inje University College of Medicine, Sanggye Paik Hospital, Dongil-ro 1342, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01757, South Korea. human@paik.ac.kr
Telephone: +82-2-9501340 Fax: +82-2-9501955
Received: January 28, 2017
Peer-review started: February 8, 2017
First decision: March 3, 2017
Revised: March 20, 2017
Accepted: May 4, 2017
Article in press: May 4, 2017
Published online: June 7, 2017
Processing time: 129 Days and 13.4 Hours
Abstract
AIM

To investigated the prognostic value of the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in patients with acute pancreatitis and determined an optimal cut-off value for the prediction of adverse outcomes in these patients.

METHODS

We retrospectively analyzed 490 patients with acute pancreatitis diagnosed between March 2007 and December 2012. NLRs were calculated at admission and 24, 48, and 72 h after admission. Patients were grouped according to acute pancreatitis severity and organ failure occurrence, and a comparative analysis was performed to compare the NLR between groups.

RESULTS

Among the 490 patients, 70 had severe acute pancreatitis with 31 experiencing organ failure. The severe acute pancreatitis group had a significantly higher NLR than the mild acute pancreatitis group on all 4 d (median, 6.14, 6.71, 5.70, and 4.00 vs 4.74, 4.47, 3.20, and 3.30, respectively, P < 0.05). The organ failure group had a significantly higher NLR than the group without organ failure on all 4 d (median, 7.09, 6.72, 6.27, and 6.24 vs 4.85, 4.49, 3.35, and 2.34, respectively, P < 0.05). The optimal cut-off value for baseline NLR was 4.76 in predicting severity and 4.88 in predicting organ failure in acute pancreatitis.

CONCLUSION

Elevated baseline NLR correlates with severe acute pancreatitis and organ failure.

Keywords: Acute pancreatitis; Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio; Organ failure; Severe acute pancreatitis

Core tip: This is a retrospective study to demonstrate the usefulness of the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio in predicting the manifestation of severe acute pancreatitis and organ failure in the early stages in patients with acute pancreatitis. The neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio is cost-effective and easy to use, utilizing tests already routinely performed. This study found the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio to be a reliable predictor of adverse outcomes in patients with acute pancreatitis and established the optimal cut-off value of the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio for predicting these outcomes.