The effect of C-reactive protein, Procalcitonin and Neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio on mortality in patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit

Abstract

Effectiveness of using inflammatory markers for prognosis assessment in the intensive care units (ICU) is still not clear. The current study aimed to examines the relationship among procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio of patients who are getting treatment in the ICU during hospitalization and mortality. The study was carried out with a total of 788 patients who were hospitalized in the ICU longer than a day. All participants were over the age of 18 years old. C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratios were compared between the groups of those who died and those who were discharged from the ICU.54.6% (n= 430) of 788 patients who were admitted to the study, were male whereas45.4% (n= 358) of them were female. The median age of the study group was calculated as 79 years (IQR = 19 years) (P<0,001). The univariate Cox regression analysis performed to examine the parameters affecting mortality, the analysissuggested following P-values for the procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio; <0.001, 0.887, and 0.014 respectively. Conversely, the multivariate Cox regression analysis which is performed to examine the parameters affecting mortalityyielded following P-valuesfor the same variables respectively: 0.242, 0.116, and 0.523. Although inflammatory markers (i.e.,C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratios) were high in patients who died, their relationship with mortality in the ICU could not be shown.