Relationship between hematologic parameters and carotid intima media thickness in patients with acute stroke

INTRODUCTION: Stroke is one of the most important causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide.CIMT is one of the predictors of ischemic stroke and is associated with various risk factors.It was aimed to investigate the relationship between the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in subclinical inflammation markers in ischemic stroke patients.METHODS: A retrospective evaluation was made of 113 patients with acute ischemic cerebrovascular event and treated with intravenous (IV) thrombolytic therapy.Patients were grouped according to the Oxford Community Stroke Project (OCSP) classification under 4 sub-groups and CIMT was measured.In patients with complete blood counts, NLR was obtained by dividing the number of neutrophils by the number of lymphocytes and PLR by dividing the number of platelets by the number of lymphocytes.RESULTS: The subgroups were determined as PACI (36.3%),POCI (32.7%),TACI (18.6%) and LACI (12.4%).A statistically significant difference was determined in NLR value between the subtypes (p=0.004).In the POCI group, NLR was higher than in the PACI and LACI groups (p=0.038,p=0.015; respectively).In the TACI group, a non-significant correlation was found between NLR and right and left CIMT (p = 0.234, p = 0.250, respectively) and between PLR and right and left CIMT (p = 0.198, p = 0.074, respectively).DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION: A significant positive correlation was determined between NLR and CIMT.Similarly, some studies have shown that PLR and carotid stenosis are correlated.There are few studies in literature that examine the distribution of NLR according to OCSP subtypes.Further studies are needed to establish the correlation between CIMT and NLR and PLR in stroke patients.