Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio predicts long-term all-cause mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease stage 5.

INTRODUCTION

A high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been reported to be a strong biomarker of inflammation.

AIM: We sought to evaluate the impact of NLR on long-term all-cause and cardio-vascular (CV) mortality in hemodialysis (HD) patients.

MATERIAL AND

METHODS

total of 84 chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 5 patients with 54 of them on HD, with a median age of 61.5 (51.3-74.8) years were enrolled. e association between NLR and clinical biomarkers was investigated. Multivariable Cox regression analysis was used to find significant predictors of all-cause and CV mortality at follow-up.

RESULTS

the median NLR (interquartile range) was 3.0 (2.1-4.1). Patients with NLR ≥3.9 (the highest tertile) had higher five-year all-cause mortality then remaining patients (53.6% vs. 30.4%; p = 0.039). On the contrary, only a trend towards increased CV mortality was observed (25.0% vs. 42.9%; p = 0.10). NLR ≥3.9 was a significant predictor of all-cause mortality at five years [hazard ratio (95%CI): 2.23 (1.10-4.50); p = 0.025] in Cox regression model adjusted for age, gender, and diabetes status. Similarly, while using NLR as continuous variable a significant association between NLR and all-cause mortality was confirmed even a er adjustment for covariates [hazard ratio per 1 unit increase (95%CI): 1.26 (1.06-1.51); p = 0.009] with the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.64. Correlations between NLR and WBC, concentration of fibrinogen, albumin were observed.

CONCLUSIONS

Asymptomatic inflammation measured by NLR showed an association with long-term all-cause mortality in stage 5 CKD patients, even while white blood cell count was in the normal range.