Preoperative Systemic Inflammatory Markers in Different Brain Pathologies: An Analysis of 140 Patients.

AIM: The aim of this study was to analyze preoperative inflammatory markers including neutrophil, lymphocyte and platelet counts and neutrophil to lymphocyte (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte (PLR) ratios in a group of patients with different brain pathologies and healthy controls.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Above mentioned preoperative inflammatory markers were analyzed in a total of 140 patients included 39 with temporal lobe epilepsy, 37 with glioblastoma multiforme, 32 with grade-I meningioma and 32 with intracranial metastasis. Healthy controls included 30 subjects. The levels were compared between each patient group and between patients and controls.

RESULTS: Significant higher neutrophil, platelet counts, NLR and PLR were found in glioma, meningioma and metastasis patients compared to epilepsy (p 0.05). On the other hand lymphocyte counts were significantly lower than epilepsy (p 0.05). PLR 120.78 was suggestive of metastasis rather than GBM.

CONCLUSION: Preoperative inflammatory markers increase in different brain pathologies and metastasis show striking changes. PLR can have diagnostic value in differentiating metastasis from GBM.