• Daniel Martin Simadibrata, Julius Calvin, Alya Darin Wijaya, and Naufal Arkan Abiyyu Ibrahim.
• Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia. Electronic address: daniel.simadibrata@ui.ac.id.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2021 Apr 1; 42: 606960-69.

BackgroundThe neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), an inflammatory marker, was suggested to be predictive of severity and mortality in COVID-19 patients. Here, we investigated whether NLR levels on admission could predict the severity and mortality of COVID-19 patients.MethodsA literature search was conducted on 23 July 2020 to retrieve all published articles, including grey literature and preprints, investigating the association between on-admission NLR values and severity or mortality in COVID-19 patients. A meta-analysis was performed to determine the overall standardized mean difference (SMD) in NLR values and the pooled risk ratio (RR) for severity and mortality with the 95% Confidence Interval (95%CI).ResultsA total of 38 articles, including 5699 patients with severity outcomes and 6033 patients with mortality outcomes, were included. The meta-analysis showed that severe and non-survivors of COVID-19 had higher on-admission NLR levels than non-severe and survivors (SMD 0.88; 95%CI 0.72-1.04; I2 = 75.52% and 1.87; 95%CI 1.25-2.49; I2 = 97.81%, respectively). Regardless of the different NLR cut-off values, the pooled mortality RR in patients with elevated vs. normal NLR levels was 2.74 (95%CI 0.98-7.66).ConclusionHigh NLR levels on admission were associated with severe COVID-19 and mortality. Further studies need to focus on determining the optimal cut-off value for NLR before clinical use.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

14 keywords...

hide…