Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelets-to-lymphocyte ratio, and red cell distribution width as prognostic indicators for length of hospital stay in pediatric asthma

Abstract

OBJECTIVES To examine the relationship between neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelets-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and red cell distribution width (RDW) and the length of hospital stay (LOS) in children with bronchial asthma METHODS: This hospital-based study examined the records of children with asthma admitted to Jazan Hospitals, Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were extracted at the time of admission. Length of hospital stay and laboratory parameters were acquired from blood. RESULTS This study involved 489 children, with a mean age of 5.8±3.5 years, of which 59.7% were male. Notably, 77.7% of the patients resided in rural areas of Jazan. The mean LOS was 3.38±0.35 days, with 2.9% having a short stay (<24 hours) and 64.2% categorized as having a medium stay (1-3 days). The mean NLR was 5.33±1.20, with 46.8% falling within the normal range. Similarly, the mean PLR was 184.84±16.55, with 42.7% classified as normal. The PLR and LOS were shown to be significantly correlated (p=0.021), while no such association existed for NLR or RDW with LOS. Among the blood biomarkers assessed, PLR demonstrated the highest predictive value for LOS in children with asthma, yielding an area under the curve of 0.664 (confidence interval: 0.606-0.723; p=0.000). CONCLUSION The findings showed no significant association between NLR and RDW with LOS. Conversely, a notable correlation was observed between PLR and LOS, suggesting that PLR may serve as a valuable predictive marker for LOS in pediatric patients with asthma.