Evaluation of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio in predicting bloodstream infection.

The prognostic role of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in bloodstream infection (BSI) deserves further investigation. The NLR values were measured and compared in BSI patients and healthy controls. The receiver operating characteristic of NLR and cut-off values were measured in BSI patients and subgroups. We have measured the NLR of study group with 2160 BSI patients and normal group with 2523 healthy controls, which was significantly high in study group (11.36 ± 21.38 vs 2.53 ± 0.86; p < 0.001) and the area under the curve was 0.834 (95% CI: 0.825-0.842; p < 0.001). The critical value of NLR for diagnosis of BSI was 3.09, with a sensitivity of 75.3%, and a specificity of 93.6%. NLR is an effective diagnostic indicator of including BSIs of Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria and fungus.