Evaluation of White Blood-cell-based Inflammatory Markers in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

Objective: It was aimed to evaluate the white blood-cell-based inflammatory markers in the normal pregnancy reference value range in terms of the presence of low-grade systemic inflammation in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).Methods: A total of 690 subjects were included in the study.GDM was defined according to the criteria of the international association of diabetes and pregnancy study groups.Four hundred seventy six pregnant women with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) and 214 pregnant women with GDM were included in the control and the case groups, respectively.Results: Age was statistically significantly higher in the GDM group than the NGT group (p=0.030).Hemoglobin levels, mean corpuscular volume levels and the mean hematocrit level were statistically significantly higher with no clinical significance in the NGT group, compared to the GDM group; (p=0.024),(p<0.001) and (p=0.008)respectively.Fasting plasma levels of glucose and post 75 g load glucose (oral glucose tolerance test); 1 h and 2 h plasma glucose were significantly higher in the GDM group than in the NGT group (p<0.001).No statistically significant differences in white blood cell count, neutrophil count, lymphocyte count, platelet count, mean platelet volume value, neutrophilto-lymphocyte ratio value, the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio value and the systemic immune-inflammation index value were found between the two groups. Conclusion:There was no statistically significant difference between white blood cell-based inflammatory markers in normal pregnancy reference values between pregnant women with GDM and pregnant women with NGT in this study.White blood cell-based inflammatory markers can be useful in understanding the pathophysiology of GDM and future studies may provide further evidence on the role of white blood cell-based inflammatory markers as an indicator of subclinical inflammation in GDM.