Blood cell count indexes as predictors of anastomotic leakage in elective colorectal surgery: a multicenter study on 1432 patients.

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate a series of blood count inflammation indexes in predicting anastomotic leakage (AL) in elective colorectal surgery.

Methods: Demographic, pathologic, and clinical data of 1432 consecutive patients submitted to colorectal surgery in eight surgical centers were retrospectively evaluated. The neutrophil to lymphocyte (NLR), derived neutrophil to lymphocyte (dNLR), lymphocyte to monocyte (LMR), and platelet to lymphocyte (PLR) ratios were calculated before surgery and on the 1st and 4th postoperative days, in patients with or without AL.

Results: There were 106 patients with AL (65 males, mean age 67.4 years). The NLR, dNLR, and PLR were significantly higher in patients with AL in comparison to those without, on both the 1st and 4th postoperative days, but significance was greater on the 4th postoperative day. An NLR cutoff value of 7.1 on this day showed the best area under the curve (AUC 0.744; 95% CI 0.719-0.768) in predicting AL.

Conclusions: Among the blood cell indexes of inflammation evaluated, NLR on the 4th postoperative day showed the best ability to predict AL. NLR is a low cost, easy to perform, and widely available index, which might be potentially used in clinical practice as a predictor of AL in patients undergoing elective colorectal surgery.