title: Association of Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio and Pulmonary Hypertension in Sarcoidosis Patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has emerged as a new marker of inflammation associated with the severity of several respiratory and cardiac diseases.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated whether the degree of systemic inflammation in sarcoidosis patients as measured by the NLR is associated with pulmonary hypertension (PH).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A NLR > 3.5 occurred with a significantly higher frequency in sarcoidosis patients with PH (50% vs. 24%, P=0.016) yielding a sensitivity of 50%, specificity of 78%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 41.9% and negative predictive value (NPV) of 81.4% and remained independently associated with PH in multivariate analysis (OR: 3.254, 95% CI: 1.094-9.678, P=0.034).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that level of inflammation in sarcoidosis patients may be associated with the development of PH. Owing to the relatively good specificity and NPV, NLR may be a good negative test, which is a simple, inexpensive and widely available in office-based setting to predict the risk of PH in sarcoidosis patients.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep and Allergy, Department of Medicine, University of Miami, FL, USA.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mirsaeidi
authors.affiliation: Division of Pharmacology, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Esmaeil
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mortaz
authors.affiliation: Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hesham R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Omar
authors.affiliation: Professor of Surgery/Anesthesiology, Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, University of South Florida, FGTBA and TEAM Health, Tampa, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Enrico M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Camporesi
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep and Allergy, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Nadera
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sweiss
keywords: Blood; Diagnosis; Marker; Pulmonary hypertension; Sarcoidosis