Shen Q, Sun ZH, Xu YM, Hu QB, Zhang WH, Huang SA. Associations between complete-blood-count-derived inflammatory markers and gastric ulcer: A cross-sectional study. World J Gastroenterol 2025; 31(38): 111298 [DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i38.111298]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Shen-An Huang, MD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, No. 1 Min De Road, Donghu District, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China. 4417760@qq.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
Qi Shen, Qi-Bo Hu, Shen-An Huang, Department of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China
Zhong-Hua Sun, Wen-Hong Zhang, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, Jiangsu Province, China
Ya-Meng Xu, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-first authors: Qi Shen and Zhong-Hua Sun.
Co-corresponding authors: Wen-Hong Zhang and Shen-An Huang.
Author contributions: Shen Q contributed to data acquisition and processing, and manuscript drafting; Sun ZH contributed to data statistical analysis and critical revision of the manuscript; Xu YM contributed to technique assistance and statistical analysis; Hu QB contributed to revising the manuscript; Zhang WH contributed to research design and critical revision of the manuscript; Huang SA contributed to research design, results interpretation, and critical revision of the manuscript; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University (No. O-MedResEthics2025-51).
Informed consent statement: The informed consent was waived by the Institutional Review Board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—a checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-a checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shen-An Huang, MD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, No. 1 Min De Road, Donghu District, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China. 4417760@qq.com
Received: June 27, 2025 Revised: August 1, 2025 Accepted: September 4, 2025 Published online: October 14, 2025 Processing time: 109 Days and 15.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Gastric ulcer (GU), a common gastrointestinal condition, is influenced by multiple factors, particularly inflammatory and immune responses. Complete blood count (CBC)-derived inflammatory biomarkers represent a novel indicator of systemic inflammation and immune status; however, their association with GU remains unclear.
AIM
To investigate the association between CBC-derived inflammatory markers and GU.
METHODS
The study sample included individuals admitted to the Gastroenterology Unit of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University from 2023 to 2024. We explored how each CBC-based inflammation indicator correlated with GU occurrence through logistic models, and assessed their predictive ability using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Additionally, we applied the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator method along with stepwise regression techniques to determine which inflammatory indicators were most significantly linked to GU.
RESULTS
Higher levels of log2 neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, log2 monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio, log2 systemic immune-inflammation index, log2 systemic inflammatory response index (SIRI), and log2 aggregate index of systemic inflammation were significantly associated with increased GU prevalence across all models, while log2 platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio was significant only in the fully adjusted model. SIRI demonstrated the highest discriminative ability, with an area under the curve of 0.868.
CONCLUSION
Hematological indicators derived from CBC tests show a significant correlation with the prevalence of GU. Among them, SIRI demonstrated the most prominent association. These markers could act as practical tools in recognizing individuals more likely to develop GU.
Core Tip: This study investigates the associations between inflammatory biomarkers derived from complete blood count (CBC) and the prevalence of gastric ulcer (GU); a condition closely linked to systemic immune and inflammatory response (SIRI). By applying logistic regression, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, and rigorous variable selection techniques (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and stepwise regression), we evaluated six CBC-derived markers. In particular, SIRI was significantly associated with GU prevalence and demonstrated high discriminatory power.
