The Role of Hematological Inflammatory Biomarkers: Neutrophil Lymphocyte Ratio (Nlr), Platelet Lymphocyte Ratio (Plr) and RDW in Covid-19 Patients.

Background : The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, causing the new infectious disease COVID-19, has spread widely around the world. On March 11th World Health Organization (WHO) declared it as a global pandemic. There are various hematological and biochemical parameters alteration has been documented in SARS-Cov-2 infection. In addition, combined ratios of these parameters are also used as inammation indexes and have been proposed as biomarkers to assist with the diagnosis, progress, and risk stratication. Objectives of the study: To investigate the role of Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio [PLR], Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and Red cell distribution width [RDW] in COVID-19 disease and to study the prognostic impact of COVID-19 infection with the potential use of hematological diagnostic biomarkers. Materials and Methods: Neutrophil Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR), Platelet Lymphocyte Ratio (PLR) and RDW data available of 500 COVID 19 positive patients were collected from the pathology Laboratory RRMCH from April 2021 to September 2021, Data about age and gender of each patient are obtained from Laboratory Information system. Results: Elevated NLR (>3.5) is observed in severe COVID-19 cases, moderate NLR (2.0-3.5) seen in moderate cases, indicating ongoing inammation and Normal NLR (<2.0) found in mild or asymptomatic cases. Platelet to Lymphocyte Ratio (PLR) has been found to be signicantly elevated in COVID-19 patients compared to healthy individuals or non-COVID-19 controls, notably higher PLR in COVID-19 patients (314.95 ± 213.04) compared to controls (260.66 ± 203.57). This difference was statistically signicant (p = 0.0066), suggesting that PLR may serve as a potential biomarker for identifying and assessing COVID-19 patients. Conclusion: the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and RDW have been shown to be useful for the diagnosis and severity assessment of COVID-19 patients. NLR may serve as a surrogate marker of early risk identication in COVID 19 infection.