Prognostic Significance of Neutrophil/Lymphocyte Ratio in Nasal Mucoceles

Abstract

Objective: High neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is associated with high mortality and recurrence in various typesof malignancy. Studies on the prognosis of benign masses in the literature are quite rare. The aim of this study was toinvestigate the association of preoperative NLR with recurrence in paranasal sinus mucoceles.Material and Methods: Demographic characteristics, hemogram values, distribution of mucoceles in paranasal sinuses, complaints of the patients, and their follow-up periods were retrospectively analyzed in patients with paranasalsinus mucocele at a tertiary care center between 2010 and 2017. Fischer’s exact test and Mann–Whitney U test wereused for statistical analyses.Results: A total of 53 patients (25 females and 28 males) were operated. The preoperative NLRs were 1.92 (standarddeviation (SD)=0.97), –2.15 (SD=1.07), and –1.99 (SD=1.08) for the frontoethmoid, maxillary, and sphenoid sinuses,respectively. After 24 months of follow-up (range, 14–84 months), recurrence was detected in four patients for thesphenoid sinus mucocele and in five patients for the frontoethmoid sinus mucocele. The mean recurrence time was10 months. No statistically significant difference was found between the frontal and sphenoid sinus sites in terms ofrecurrence (p=2.15). The preoperative NLR of the patients with recurrence was found to be 2.39 (p=0.352) for mucoceles located in the sphenoid sinus and 3.106 (p=0.019) for mucoceles located in the frontoethmoid region.Conclusion: Preoperative high NLR can be used to show recurrence in the paranasal mucoceles of the frontoethmoid region. NLR is an inexpensive marker that is easily obtained from routine blood samples and may lead the clinicianin the prognosis of frontoethmoid sinus mucocele patients.