Peripheral Blood Platelet to Lymphocyte Ratio as Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Markers of Acute Cerebral Infarction and its Clinical Significance.

BACKGROUND

The aim of the present study is to explore the diagnostic and prognostic value of peripheral blood platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in acute cerebral infarction (ACI).

METHODS

We enrolled 121 patients with ACI and 35 healthy volunteers in the present study. The lymphocyte and platelet counts and the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratios of the candidates were calculated, and a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to examine whether PLR was a sensitive biomarker for distinguishing ACI patients from the healthy volunteers; moreover, the Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) results of the patients were recorded to evaluate the short-term prognosis of the patients, and the relationship between PLR and GOS were investigated.

RESULTS

We observed that the platelet counts were decreased in patients with ACI compared to the healthy volunteers, but no significant differences were observed (p > 0.05). On the other hand, lymphocyte counts were significantly decreased in patients with ACI, and PLR was significantly increased in patients with ACI compared with the healthy controls (p < 0.001). Moreover, the area under the curve (AUC) of platelet counts, lymphocyte counts, and PLR were 0.5365 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.4373 to 0.6357), 0.7526 (95% CI, 0.6630 to 0.8421), and 0.8320 (95% CI, 0.7586 to 0.9054), respectively, suggesting that PLR was a sensitive biomarker for distinguishing ACI patients from the healthy controls. Finally, the PLR of the patients were negatively correlated with the GOS score of the patients.

CONCLUSIONS

We reported that PLR was significantly increased in the peripheral blood of patients with ACI, sug-gesting that PLR might be a potential early diagnostic and prognostic marker for ACI.