Thyroid autoimmunity and increased neutrophil lymphocyte ratio in patients with chronic urticaria

Aim: The etiopathogenesis of chronic urticaria (CU) is not clear yet. However, it has been shown that autoimmunity and inflammation play important roles in most of the studies. In this study, we aimed to determine the prevalence of thyroid autoimmunity in patients with CU and to investigate the relationship between the severity of the disease and thyroid autoimmunity. and also we aimed to compare the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR), eosinophil lymphocyte ratio (ELR) and monocyte lymphocyte ratio (MLR) which are inflammatory markers between the CU group and the control group. Material and Methods: Medical records of CU patients who were followed in adult allergy-immunology policlinic were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 100 patients with CU and 100 healthy subjects were included in the study. Patients' demographic datas, seven-day urticarial activity scores (UAS 7), drugs that were used, anti-thyroglobulin (anti-Tg) and anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-Tpo), anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) and blood count parameters as laboratory data were recorded. As control group blood count parameters of healthy individuals that age and gender-matched were recorded. Results: Anti-Tpo was positive in 19%, anti-Tpo was positive in 8% and ANA was positive in 17% of the patients with CU. When we divided patients with CU according to UAS 7 into three groups as mild, moderate and severe, there were no significant difference between the groups as anti-Tpo, anti-Tg and ANA results (p>0.05). When we compare NLR, MLR and ELR parameters between the patients and healthy group,we found that NLR and MLR parameters were statistically significant higher in patients groups (P=0.028, p=0.001, respectively) but there was no difference between the groups as ELR parameter (p=0,094). When we classified patients with CU as anti-Tpo, anti-Tg and ANA positive and negative, there were no significant differences between the groups as NLR, MLR and ELR results (p>0.05). Conclusion: The importance of autoimmunity and inflammation in CU has been shown in studies. In addition, in this study the relationship between the disease activity of urticaria and the thyroid autoimmunity was not determined but the NLR and MLR parameters were found higher in CU as inflammatory markers