Original ResearchClinical value of the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio in diagnosing adult strangulated inguinal hernia

- This research is the first research on diagnosing strangulated inguinal hernia.
- The cutoff point generated in this study may be of future benefit in stratifying incarcerated inguinal hernia patients.
- Use of neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio in clinical diagnosis may improve the prognosis of patients with strangulated inguinal hernia.

BackgroundDiagnosis of incarcerated inguinal hernia (IIH) is not difficult, but currently, there are no diagnostic criteria that can be used to differentiate it from strangulated inguinal hernia (SIH). This research aimed to evaluate the clinical value of the neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in diagnosing SIH.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed 263 patients with IIH who had undergone emergency operation. The patients were divided into two groups according to IIH severity: group A, patients with pure IIH validated during operation as having no bowel ischemia; group B, patients with SIH validated during operation as having obvious bowel ischemia, including bowel necrosis. We statistically evaluated the relation between several clinical features and SIH. The accuracy of different indices was then evaluated and compared using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses, and the corresponding cutoff values were calculated.ResultUnivariate analysis showed eight clinical features that were significantly different between the two groups. They were then subjected to multivariate analysis, which showed that the NLR, type of hernia, and incarcerated organ were significantly related to SIH. ROC curve analysis showed that the NLR had the largest area under the ROC curve.ConclusionAmong the different clinical features, the NLR appears to be the best index in diagnosing SIH.