Assessment of diagnostic value of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and platelet to lymphocyte ratio as inflammatory indicators and indirect endothelial dysfunction markers in patients with acute pulmonary embolism

Introduction: Introduction. Acute pulmonary embolism (APE) is a serious cardiovascular disease associated with high mortality rates despite advanced therapeutic options and widely used antithrombotic prophylaxis. The variety of nonspecific symptoms and comorbidities result in APE not being properly diagnosed in many patients. Therefore, identifying new, easily accessible and cheap diagnostic markers for the disease is important. Studies conducted for the last decade have undoubtedly confirmed the role of inflammation and endothelial damage in pathogenesis of APE, and the elevated NLR and PLR values have been considered as a new markers of inflammation. Material and methods: Computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) and routine blood tests were performed in all the patients, after which neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were calculated, based on neutrophil, platelet and lymphocyte counts. Finally, statistical analysis of the results in groups with confirmed and ruled-out APE was performed. Results: There were no statistically significant differences in the values of NLR and PLR between patients with confirmed and ruled-out APE. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests were used with p≤0.05 considered significant. Conclusions: According to the results of this study, it was not possible to demonstrate the usefulness of NLR and PLR in the diagnostics of APE. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the literature considering the role of NLR and PLR in the diagnostics of APE.