Alterations and predictive value of blood routine parameters in patients with lupus enteritis: A retrospective study

Abstract

Background Lupus enteritis (LE) is prone to incorrect and missed diagnoses. LE primarily occurs during the active stage of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), which often manifests with alterations in peripheral blood cell that may serve as indicators of disease activity and organ damage. This study aims to investigate the alterations and predictive value of routine blood parameters for LE diagnosis. Methods This exploratory study retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 36 patients with SLE who were admitted to Suining Central Hospital between January 2006 and April 2023. Additionally, a control group consisting of 72 SLE patients without LE, matched for sex and age, was enrolled. A comparison was made between the two groups regarding clinical characteristics and changes in routine blood parameters. Binary logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were conducted to identify independent risk factors and evaluate their diagnostic performance for LE. Results The LE group exhibited significantly higher neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), along with a lower lymphocyte count (LYM), compared to the control group ( p < .05). Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that NLR independently predicted the onset of LE, with an odds ratio of 1.347 and a 95% confidence interval of 1.070–1.696 ( p < .01). ROC curve analysis demonstrated that NLR had an area under the curve of 0.68 for diagnosing LE ( p < .05). When the cutoff value was set at 2.44, the Youden Index was only 0.31. Conclusion Significant differences were observed in several routine parameters between patients with LE and the control group, which can be attributed to the occurrence of LE during the active stage of SLE. However, only the NLR emerged as an independent risk factor for LE,and its predicting vulue for was insufficient; no blood routine parameter has been identified as an reliable predictor for LE.