Simple blood tests as predictive markers of disease severity and clinical condition in patients with venous insufficiency

Abstract

Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) is a progressive inflammatory disease. Because of its inflammatory nature, several circulating markers were investigated for predicting disease progression. We aimed to investigate simple inflammatory blood markers as predictors of clinical class and disease severity in patients with CVI. Eighty patients with CVI were divided into three groups according to clinical class (grade 1, 2 and 3) and score of disease severity (mild, moderate and severe). The basic inflammatory blood markers [neutrophil, lymphocyte, mean platelet volume (MPV), white blood cell (WBC), platelet, albumin, D-dimer, fibrinogen, fibrinogen to albumin ratio, and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio] were investigated in each group. Serum neutrophil, lymphocyte, MPV, platelet count, D-dimer and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio levels were similar among the groups (P > 0.05). Although the serum WBC levels were significant in the clinical severity groups (P < 0.05), it was useless to separate each severity class. However, albumin, fibrinogen and the fibrinogen to albumin ratio were significant predictors of clinical class and disease severity. Especially, the fibrinogen to albumin ratio was detected as an independent indicator for a clinical class and disease severity with high sensitivity and specificity (75% sensitivity and 87.5% specificity for clinical class and 90% sensitivity and 88.3% specificity for disease severity). Serum fibrinogen and albumin levels can be useful parameters to determine clinical class and disease severity in patients with CVI. Moreover, the fibrinogen to albumin ratio is a more sensitive and specific predictor of the progression of CVI.