Comparing the mean platelet volume and the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in children with bacterial pneumonia associated with and without pleural empyema

Background: Pneumonia is one of the severe infections in children, and empyema is one of its essential complications which causes more risk in affected children. Therefore, its early diagnosis is of great importance. Objective: This study aims to compare the value of two inflammatory markers including mean platelet volume (MPV) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in children with pneumonia associated with and without pleural empyema. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on the data of 128 children aged 3 months to 14 years with bacterial pneumonia associated with pleural empyema and 128 children without pleural empyema. The MPV and NLR values and the patients' demographic and clinical characteristics were analyzed in SPSS v. 18 software. The confidence interval for the area under the ROC curve was calculated using binomial exact method. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: Of 256 children, 42.2% were girls, and most of children had ages <3 years (35.2%). Children with empyema had significantly higher NLR, platelet count, and MPV than children without empyema (P= 0.040, 0.005, and 0.021, respectively). The MPV (P=0.020) and NLR (P=0.039) were significant predictors of empyema. Conclusion: The use of NLR and MPV may be useful in the early diagnosis of empyema in children with pneumonia.