High neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio and low lymphocyte percentage are independent risk factors for new-onset CKD

•Inflammation plays a key role in the pathophysiology of CKD.•High NLR and low LYMPH% are independent risk factors for new-onset CKD, and they can effectively predict new-onset CKD.•Blood routine examination is a common test and it is easy to calculate NLR and LYMPH%. For people with elevated NLR or low LYMPH%, frequent follow-up of kidney function change may be necessary for early diagnosis of CKD. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is one of the major public health problems worldwide, and inflammation is a noticeable cause of CKD. A total of 5508 non-CKD patients were enrolled in our prospective study and followed for three years, with 1.25% (n = 69) participants having newonset CKD at the endpoint. After adjustment for potential confounders, we found that High NLR and low LYMPH% are two independent risk factors for new-onset CKD: Compared with the lowest NLR tertile, the multifactor corrected OR (95% CI) of the highest tertile was 2.47(1.20–5.09), P = 0.014; And adjusted OR (95% CI) was 0.31(0.16–0.62) for the highest LYMPH% tertile, P = 0.001. The model constructed with NLR, LYMPH%, and other risk factors had favourable predictive power for new-onset CKD with an AUC of 0.82 (95% CI, 0.76–0.88). Assessment of NLR and LYMPH% may be helpful for early warning of CKD occurrence.