Correlation between neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and soluble FMS-like tyrosine kinase 1 in pregnant women with preeclampsia

Preeclampsia (PE) is a multi-system syndrome in pregnancy that affects 5-10% of pregnancies and is a significant cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality. Therefore, an early and precise diagnosis of PE is needed. Several biomarkers have been used for this diagnosis. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a potential biomarker that can be assessed through routine blood tests, but few studies have been conducted to compare NLR with other conventional markers. This study analyzes the correlation between NLR and soluble FMS-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFLT-1) levels in pregnant women with PE. This study used a cross-sectional design and included 88 patients divided into two groups (normal n=44, PE n=44) by consecutive sampling. All research subjects took venous blood samples and performed routine blood tests and sFLT-1. All statistical analyses were performed using the Statistical Program for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS 24, Chicago, IL, USA). There was no significant difference between the NLR in the control and PE groups, which were 5.45 (0.5) and 5.87 (5.5), respectively. The sFLT-1 marker increased significantly and increased in normal pregnancy and PE, namely 6336 (579) pg/mL and 18,775 (9841) pg/mL. NLR and log sFLT-1 were not correlated in PE (rho=0.11, p=0.451), but they were related in normal pregnancy (rho=0.705, p<0.001). In conclusion, there is a difference in sFLT-1 levels in PE and controls, but no difference in the NLR biomarker. NLR does not correlate with the sFLT-1 biomarker.