ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Gazzetta Medica Italiana Archivio per le Scienze Mediche 2016 June;175(6):248-53

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Inverse correlation between tubo-ovarian abscess size and serum inflammatory markers

Melahat YILDIRIM ¹, Busra DEMIR CENDEK ², Ayse F. YAVUZ AVSAR ³

¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey; ² Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sincan Nafiz Korel State Hospital, Ankara, Turkey; ³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Yildirim Beyazit University, Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the levels of serum inflammatory markers and the size of tubo-ovarian abscess.
METHODS: This retrospective study consisted of 144 female patients with tubo-ovarian abscess (TOA). Patients were divided into two groups as having TOA size smaller than 7 cm in diameter and ≥7 cm in diameter. Preoperative serum inflammatory markers such as white blood cell count (WBC), C-reactive protein (CRP), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and red cell distribution width (RDW) and TOA sizes were compared.
RESULTS: There was a significant inverse correlation between NLR values and TOA sizes (P<0.001). WBC value was found 13.9 (7.2) K/uL in patients with TOA size <7 cm, and 11.3 (6.18) K/uL in patients with TOA size ≥7 cm (P=0.025). CRP values were detected lower in patients with TOA size ≥7 cm comparing to TOA size <7 cm (20.9 [44.2] vs. 54.1 [175.8], P=0.002). NLR values were found to be 10.4 (9.9) for TOA size <7 cm and 8.1 (5.9) for TOA size ≥7 cm (P=0.001). There was an inverse correlation between RDW values and TOA size under and equal or above 6 cm in diameters in the study (17.8 [27.2] for TOA size <6 cm and 15.5 [5.8] for TOA size ≥6 cm, P=0.037).
CONCLUSIONS: Patients with large TOAs may have low levels of serum inflammatory markers and these findings can be misinterpreted by clinicians leading them to cause the increase in the mortality and morbidity of the disease unintentionally.