ABSTRACT

Objectives:

To investigate the diagnostic implication of the platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) as a biological marker in predicting the malignancy of space-occupying laryngeal lesions.

Methods:

The medical records of the patients who underwent an operation for a laryngeal pathology between September 2010 and January 2015 in a tertiary referral center were retrospectively reviewed. For the control group, 50 age and sex matched patients were selected among the patients who underwent septoplasty. Preoperative platelet to lymphocyte ratio was calculated for each subject in the malignant, benign and control groups.

Results:

Comparison of the three groups using Kruskal Wallis test showed that there was no statistical difference between the groups. (p>0.05, p=0.871) The median PLR of the patients in the malignant group was lower than the benign group and the control group.

Conclusions:

In conclusion, squamous laryngeal carcinoma was not found to be associated with an increased preoperative PLR. Our findings indicated that, PLR may not be used as a biological marker for the diagnosis of laryngeal malignancy.