Platelet/Albumin ratio and plateletcrit levels are potential new biomarkers for assessing endoscopic inflammatory bowel disease severity.

BACKGROUND: Endoscopy is currently recognized as the gold standard for assessing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) severity. However, because the procedure is costly and invasive, endoscopy is not suitable for frequently monitoring intestinal inflammation. In this study, our aim was to identify noninvasive, low cost, and convenient biomarkers for identifying endoscopic IBD activity.

METHODS: In total, 246 patients with IBD (131 with Ulcerative colitis (UC) and 115 with Crohn's disease (CD)) and 369 healthy controls were recruited for this retrospective study. IBD activity was evaluated using endoscopic and clinical examinations. The potential of several inflammatory biomarkers, including platelets (PLT), plateletcrit (PCT), albumin (ALB), highly sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and platelet-to-albumin ratio (PLT/ALB) to assess endoscopic IBD activity was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses.

RESULTS: PLT/ALB ratio, PLT, ALB, and hs-CRP levels were correlated with Mayo scores in UC patients, while PCT, PLT, fibrinogen (FIB), PLT/ALB ratio, hs-CRP, and ESR levels were correlated with Simple Endoscopic Scores for CD (SES-CD) in CD patients. ROC analyses showed that the area under the curve (AUC) value for the PLT/ALB ratio (0.705) was greater than hs-CRP (0.607) and ESR (0.552) values in UC patients. The AUC value for PCT (0.779) was greater than hs-CRP (0.698) and ESR (0.746) values in CD patients.

CONCLUSION: PLT/ALB ratio and PCT biomarkers were the most appropriate of all tested inflammatory biomarkers for assessing endoscopic IBD activity in UC and CD patients, respectively.