Aim:
Acute bronchiolitis is an inflammatory disease. The aim of this study was to examine the neutrophil / lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in pediatric patients with bronchiolitis and to evaluate their relationship with disease severity.
Materials and Methods:
The study consisted of 77 patients aged between 3 months and 5 years and 34 healthy children diagnosed as acute bronchiolitis. In the patient and control groups, C-reactive protein (CRP), white blood cell count (WBC), mean platelet volume (MPV), neutrophil and lymphocyte numbers and NLR values were examined.
Results:
CRP, WBC, NLR and neutrophil counts were significantly higher in patients with bronchiolitis (p<0.01, p<0.001, p<0.001, p<0.001, respectively). MPV levels were significantly lower in the patients (p<0.05). Patients were divided into three groups according to the severity of the disease. In the severe bronchiolitis patient group (n=21), neutrophil and NLR levels were significantly higher than the mild bronchiolitis group (n=25) (respectively p<0.05). In the correlation analysis; There was a positive correlation between NLR and MPV, BKS and CRP (r=0.262–p<0.05; r=0.454–p<0.001; r=0.706–p<0.001 respectively). Among the parameters examined in hospital admissions for bronchiolitis patients, only the field results under the curve in the Receiveroperating characteristic (ROC) analysis for the CRP were found to be diagnostic enough (0.812), but no qualification was found with WBC and NLR (0.692, 0.583, respectively).
Conclusions:
Increased CRP levels can be used as a good predictor of bronchiolitis in children patients and increased NLR ratio can be used as a good biomarker in determining severity of disease.
Keywords: bronchiolitis, inflammation, neutrophil, lymphocyte