An Assessment on the Effectiveness of the Immature Granulocyte Percentage in Predicting Internal Organ Involvement Among Children With Henoch-Schönlein Purpura

Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP) is the most common childhood systemic vasculitis. The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of the immature granulocyte (IG) percentage as a new marker for predicting internal organ involvement in HSP. This study included 75 patients aged below 18 years who were diagnosed with HSP. The mean age was 7.48±2.77 years. The male/female ratio was 1.14. The findings showed that 35 (46.7%) of the patients had an internal organ involvement. The mean IG percentage was 0.88±0.68 among the patient group with HSP internal organ involvement, while it was 0.31±0.15 in the group without internal organ involvement, and a significant difference was determined between the 2 groups (P=0.000). The findings showed that the patients with renal involvement had the highest mean IG percentage (IG; 1.00±0.21). When the cutoff value for the IG percentage was specified as 0.45 to predict internal organ involvement, the sensitivity was 77.1%, and the specificity was 85%. In this study, the findings showed that IG percentage increased among patients with internal organ involvement in HSP and that its sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values were higher in predicting internal organ involvement compared with other markers.