Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio in patients with ankylosing spondylitis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: The aim of this meta-analysis was to investigate the association of neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) with AS (ankylosing spondylitis) patients. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Elsevier Science Direct and Google Scholar data- bases (up to 30 September 2018) were searched to collect all pertinent articles. The pooled standard mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated by the random effects model. Results: Totally 10 studies contained 765 AS patients and 701 healthy controls were included in our meta-analysis. The results indicated that there were significant statistical differences between AS patients and healthy controls in NLR (SMD = 0.418, 95%CI = 0.239-0.598, p<.001). Meanwhile, the results of subgroup analysis showed, in the subgroup of C-reactive protein (CRP) 10 and the two subgroups of BASDAI (the Bath AS Disease Activity Index), NLR levels in AS were significantly higher than in control (all p<.001). The results of subgroup analysis and meta-regression suggested that BASDAI and CRP were likely associated with NLR in AS patients. Conclusion: The current meta-analysis provides evidence that NLR is a reasonable measure to detect systemic inflammation in AS patients. Besides, NLR may be able to indicate disease activity in patients with AS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]