In recent years, neutrophil-lymphocyte rate (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte rate (PLR) are reported to be increasing in plenty of rheumatological diseases and the latter rates to be disease activity indicators. In our study, we aimed to search for the difference in NLR and PLR before and after the treatment, their relationship with the disease activity and their seasonal differences in patients using anti-TNF medication for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) while.
Sixty-eight RA and 203 AS patients using anti-TNF medication for at least 6 months were included in the study. Patients with acute infection, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, renal failure and liver failure were excluded from the study. NLR, PLR, seasonal differences and the disease activities of the patients were evaluated retrospectively.
We determined that NLR and PLR are strongly correlated with disease activity, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and c-reactive protein (CRP). In addition, we determined that disease activity, thrombocytes and PLR are increased in spring and winter, especially in patients with RA.
NLR and PLR are simple, cheap, and easily accessible parameters which can be used to evaluate disease activity and treatment response before and after anti-TNF treatment. Further studies are needed to enlighten the effect of seasonal differences on disease activity (Tab. 2, Fig. 2, Ref. 43).