Is neutrophil lymphocyte ratio a useful biomarker in predicting fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C infection?

INTRODUCTION: Percutaneous liver biopsy is the gold standard in the evaluation of liver fibrosis in the chronic hepatitis C infection (HCV). Invasive biopsy leads to complication risks and high financial burden for each patient. Therefore, noninvasive methods are needed including neutrophil lymphocyte (NLR) ratio, thrombocyte lymphocyte ratio (PLR). The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of neutrophil-lymphocyte and platelet-lymphocyte ratios as a biomarker on the prediction of response status and fibrosis degrees of patients with HCV.
METHODS: We enrolled184 chronic hepatitis c in patients this retrospective study. The neutrophy-lymphocyte ratio and thrombocyte lymphocyte ratio of the patients were calculated using the hemogram data in the hospital registry system. The patients were evaluated in two groups according to their antiviral treatment response, with sustanied viral response and no response.
RESULTS: : It has been shown that sustained virological response in HCV infection decreases with increasing age (p value: 0.04). NLR was associated with the degree of fibrosis (p: 0,02) while PLR was not significant (p: 0,21). On the contrary, there was no significant relationship between NLR, PLR and treatment response status.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study conducted in the Turkish population is the first study to reveal the relationship between response and fibrosis with NLR and PLR in chronic hepatitis C infection using the largest sample size. Low NLR value can be used as a biomarker to predict advanced fibrosis due to chronic hepatitis C.