Diagnostic Relevance of Neutrophil Percentage-to-Albumin Ratio in Differentiating Bacterial Emergency Settings
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36283/ziun-pjmd14-3/022Keywords:
Neutrophils, Albumins, Bacterial Infections, Emergency Medicine, Biomarkers.Abstract
Background: In emergency settings in hospitals, it is important to differentiate between bacterial and non-bacterial infections to ensure the proper use of antibiotics. This study aimed to assess how well the Neutrophil Percentage-to-Albumin Ratio (NPAR) could identify bacterial infections in patients admitted to emergency departments.
Methods: In this prospective observational study, the Pathology department of a tertiary care Akhtar Saeed hospital Lahore admitted 150 patients for the evaluation of possible infections under ethical approval (AST-2312) from October 2024- December 2024. The sample size was calculated by using OpenEpi version 3.0.0. Eligible patients were recruited by using the consecutive sampling technique. Total blood count and albumin levels were both measured to figure out the patient’s NPAR score. All patients were grouped into bacterial infection and non-bacterial infection categories. SPSS version 25 was used for statistical analyses (descriptive statistics, t-tests, chi-square tests, p<0.05).
Results: Out of the total 150 patients, 89 (59.3%) were diagnosed with bacterial infections. Infections caused by bacteria had a higher mean NPAR (3.8 ± 0.7) than infections from non-bacterial causes (2.1 ± 0.6) (p < 0.001). Both an increase in white blood cell counts and raised C-reactive protein were strongly connected with higher NPAR. Sensitivity was 85.4%, specificity was 78.7%, positive predictive value was 84.1%, and negative predictive value was 80.2% for NPAR.
Conclusion: NPAR was seen to be an easy, economical, and easily used biomarker that performed well in differentiating bacterial and other types of infection cases in the emergency room.
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