Neutrophil to lymphocyte and platelet to lymphocyte ratios as an indicator of inflammation in patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis

Objective: Recently, the ratios of neutrophil to lymphocyte (NL) and platelet to lymphocyte (PL) have been used as an indicator of inflammation. We aimed to investigate the relation of recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) to inflammation by analyzing the ratios of NL and PL.

Methods: We conducted a case-control study on 143 patients with RAS and 134 healthy control cases between February 2015 and March 2016. Age, sex, neutrophil count, platelet count, lymphocyte count, and the ratios of NL and PL of the participants were recorded.

Results: One hundred and forty-three RAS patients and 134 control cases were included in the study. The ratios of NL and PL of RAS group were significantly higher than in the control group (p=0.004 and p=0.010, respectively). The NL ratio was the only independent predictor of RAS in multivariate logistic regression analysis (p=0.014). The cut-off value of NL ratio for predicting RAS was 3.49 with 13.3% sensitivity and 99.9% specificity (p=0.010).

Conclusion: We have found that the ratios of NL and PL were higher in RAS group than the control group. The results of our study support that inflammation has an important role in the pathogenesis of RAS.