High neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio is associated with increased carotid artery intima‐media thickness in type 2 diabetes

AIMS/INTRODUCTION: Emerging evidence suggests that the neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a novel potential marker of inflammatory responses. The objective was to evaluate the association between NLR and carotid artery intima‐media thickness (cIMT) in type 2 diabetes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We carried out a case–control study involving 320 patients with type 2 diabetes, and 250 age‐, sex‐ and body mass index‐matched healthy controls who all underwent carotid ultrasonography and took a blood examination. We divided the diabetes patients into two groups according to cIMT: 188 diabetes patients with high cIMT and 132 diabetes patients with low cIMT, and compared baseline characteristics and NLR between the two groups and healthy controls. RESULTS: The mean NLR was significantly higher in the group of diabetes patients with high cIMT than the group of diabetes patients with low cIMT, who in turn showed a significantly higher NLR compared with control participants. Logistic regression analysis showed that the NLR was an independent risk factor for diabetes patients with high cIMT (odds ratio 140.89, 95% CI 1.71–11615.30, P = 0.028). Based on the receiver operating characteristic curve, use of the NLR as an indicator for diabetes patients with high cIMT diagnosis was projected to be 3.16, and yielded a sensitivity and specificity of 36.2% and 93.2%, respectively, with an area under the curve of 0.606 (95% CI 0.544–0.667). CONCLUSIONS: High NLR might be a potential biomarker for the increased cIMT in type 2 diabetes patients. Future studies are required to validate our findings.