Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System
Open Access

Abstract

Introduction: Several markers have been proposed along the time to assess the severity and the progression of ulcerative colitis (UC) but they are expensive and some of them not specific for intestinal inflammation. Thus, new simpler and cheaper tools are required to evaluate the severity of the disease. The aim of our study was to evaluate the contribution of the neutrophil/ lymphocyte ratio (NLR) for assessing the severity of UC. Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective study over a 5 year period (January 2012- December 2016), including 68 UC patients, from ambulatory or hospitalized, divided into two groups: the first group of 23 patients (33.8%) with active disease and the second group of 45 patients (66.2%) of inactive UC. Disease activity was assessed using the Mayo score and the data was statistically analyzed using SPSS20. Results: Mean age of patients was 39 years (19-78 yrs). Female-male ratio was 0.78 and the average disease duration was 8 years. Seven cases (10.3%) were diagnosed with pancolitis. Of the 23 patients with active UC, 14 patients had mild to moderate disease and 9 patients had a severe form. In patients with inactive disease, average NLR was 2.36 (0.79 to 10.84), while in patients with active UC average NLR was 4.28 (2.18 to 11.59) with a significant difference (p <0.01). No significant NLR variations were observed between the patients with mild to moderate disease and those with severe forms. Conclusion: In our study, NLR was significantly higher in the cases of active UC. This can be a useful marker in the assessing and follow up of the UC activity, without giving information on the disease severity. Key words: ulcerative colitis, neutrophils/lymhocytes

Biography

E-mail: ovidiufr@yahoo.co.uk