Background: The aim of the present study is to explore the diagnostic and prognostic value of peripheral blood platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in acute cerebral infarction (ACI).
Methods: We enrolled 121 patients with ACI and 35 healthy volunteers in the present study. The lymphocyte and platelet counts and the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratios of the candidates were calculated, and a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to examine whether PLR was a sensitive biomarker for distinguishing ACI patients from the healthy volunteers; moreover, the Glasgow outcome scale (GOS) results of the patients were recorded to evaluate the short-term prognosis of the patients, and the relationship between PLR and GOS were investigated.
Results: We observed that the platelet counts were decreased in patients with ACI compared to the healthy volunteers, but no significant differences were observed (p > 0.05). On the other hand, lymphocyte counts were significantly decreased in patients with ACI, and PLR was significantly increased in patients with ACI compared with the healthy controls (p < 0.001). Moreover, the area under the curve (AUC) of platelet counts, lymphocyte counts, and PLR were 0.5365 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.4373 to 0.6357), 0.7526 (95% CI, 0.6630 to 0.8421), and 0.8320 (95% CI, 0.7586 to 0.9054), respectively, suggesting that PLR was a sensitive biomarker for distinguishing ACI patients from the healthy controls. Finally, the PLR of the patients were negatively correlated with the GOS score of the patients.
Conclusions: We reported that PLR was significantly increased in the peripheral blood of patients with ACI, sug-gesting that PLR might be a potential early diagnostic and prognostic marker for ACI.