Abstract :
Background: White blood cells especially neutrophils and lymphocytes play a major role in modulating the inflammatory response and thus it could be a potential inflammatory marker. To assess the same this study was conducted to compare the Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) among the type 2 diabetes mellitus cases with and without diabetic retinopathy.
Materials and Methods: This case control study was conducted among the patients with diabetes mellitus attending the outpatient and inpatient department of Ophthalmology, Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Tamil Nadu during months of October 2019 to December 2019. A total of 160 patients were included in the study of whom 80 were cases of diabetes mellitus with diabetic retinopathy and another 80 were cases of diabetes mellitus without diabetic retinopathy (DR). Data was entered in Microsoft excel and data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.
Results: Total white blood cells, neuterophils, lymphocytes and neutrophil - lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were found to be statistically significant between the diabetic retinopathy and diabetes mellitus groups. NLR among the diabetic retinopathy and diabetes mellitus group was found to be 2.15 ± 0.5 and 1.91 ± 0.61, respectively (p
Conclusion: NLR is an efficient and stable marker of inflammation, can serve as an important predictor in the assessment of diabetic retinopathy among cases with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Key message: Cases with DR were found to have increased NLR than the cases with diabetes mellitus alone. Hence NLR can be added to routine screening process of all diabetes mellitus cases and if elevated cases can be subjected to ophthalmologist.