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Research Paper | Medical Science | India | Volume 11 Issue 10, October 2022 | Rating: 5.1 / 10
Predicting Early Requirement of Invasive Ventilation in COVID-19 Patients Using Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio
Jesica Maria DSouza | Priya Mitali
Abstract: Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected millions of people and overloaded the healthcare system. Hypoxemic respiratory failure is a common clinical picture requiring supplemental oxygen therapy as the first line of treatment. Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) reflects patient?s inflammatory state indirectly. In this study, we aim to determine the efficacy of NLR for predicting early requirement of invasive ventilation in COVID-19 patients. Methodology: In this observational descriptive record based study, 80 patients with confirmed COVID-19 status hospitalized in our ICU in month of April through June 2021 were retrospectively analysed. For each patient demographic data, lab findings and inflammatory markers were collected from the medical records. The type of oxygen support needed in first 48 hours was noted. Their NLR was calculated from the blood investigations available within 24 hours of admission. Results: The ROC curve found the optimal cut-off value of NLR to be 5.316 which distinguishes patients in two groups. The area under the ROC curve for NLR was 0.546 (95% CI, 0.416-0.676). The sensitivity and specificity value of NLR was 0.674 and 0.568 respectively. High NLR (>5.316) was associated with more patients (n=29) (64.4%) requiring invasive ventilation (p value=0.03) Conclusion: Our study concludes that NLR is moderately good in predicting early requirement of invasive ventilation in COVID-19 patients and this simple biomarker can be used where lack of resources often prevents costly testing.
Keywords: COVID-19; Neutrophil, lymphocyte, Ratio, Biomarker, Invasive ventilation
Edition: Volume 11 Issue 10, October 2022,
Pages: 1230 - 1233