Relationship of Red Cell Index with the Severity of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

BACKGROUND: We aimed to investigate the association between red cell index (RCI) and the severity of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and compare predictive value of RCI, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) for the severity of COPD. METHODS: A total of 207 participants were recruited (100 COPD patients and 107 healthy controls). COPD patients were divided into two groups according to the optimal cut-off value of RCI determined by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Pearson's correlation test, logistic regression analysis and other tests were performed. CONCLUSION: RCI is a novel biomarker that can better assess pulmonary function and severity of COPD than NLR and PLR. Higher RCI is related to deterioration of pulmonary function.