Elevated neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio can be a biomarker for predicting the development of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia

Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) is the abnormal growth of cells on the surface of the cervix that could potentially lead to cervical cancer. In the present study, we investigated whether measuring the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) can be useful for predicting the risks of developing cervical lesions. This is a retrospective analysis of 212 women who were enrolled in this study. Among them, 106 patients with histologically confirmed CIN1-3 who were treated with loop electrosurgical excision procedure or cold knife cone in the Department of Gynecology, The Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University between July 30(th) 2016 and January 30(th) 2019. Among the 106 patients in the CIN group, cytology showed minor abnormality which included atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance or low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion in 42, high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion in 62, and squamous cell carcinoma in 2 patients. We found that the NLR has no significant difference between the control group and the CIN1 group, while there were significant differences between CIN1 and CIN2, and CIN2 and CIN3 group. The median of the NLR was higher in the HPV16-persistent groups than in the HPV-negative group. In conclusion, a high NLR value independently predicts CIN and the stage of CIN. The NLR may help doctors evaluate outcomes of patients received conization and choose alternative therapies for patients with high NLR value.