Preoperative monocyte lymphocyte ratio (MLR) is an effective blood marker to predict heightened three-year mortality in older adults who have experienced hip fracture and had surgery for it, a new study finds.
The predictive abilities of the marker, however, decrease as time goes on, according to the study published Monday in Frontiers in Surgery.
Recent research has shown that MLR, along with neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR), C-reactive protein (CRP), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), may have the ability to predict post-operative mortality in older adults who experienced hip fractures and then had surgery.
That’s why researchers looked at the link between the markers with regard to three-year mortality risk in that population, specifically. The markers are indicative of a person’s systemic inflammatory response to the trauma of hip fracture, and can predict complications and death in patients, the authors noted.
Investigators evaluated 760 people aged 65 and up who underwent hip fracture surgery between November 2018 and November 2019. The team measured their MLR, NLR, PLR, CRP, and SII levels when the people were admitted for hip surgery. They followed up on the patients for an average of 3.1 years after surgery. The average age of patients who completed follow-up was about 79, and 71.1% of them were female.
Higher levels of MLR before hip surgery were significantly associated with an increased three-year postoperative mortality risk, though there weren’t correlations between three-year mortality and the other markers, the data showed.
“There was a positive correlation between the MLR level and the risk of mortality,” the authors wrote.
The news comes after a July 20 study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that depressed older adults had fewer days alive and at home after hip surgery.
