Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and all-cause mortality with and without myeloproliferative neoplasms—a Danish longitudinal study

The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio(NLR) is increased in chronic inflammation and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). We hypothesize that NLR is associated with all-cause mortality and mortality by comorbidity burden in the general population and individuals with MPN. We included 835,430 individuals from The Danish General Suburban Population Study, general practitioners, and outpatient clinics. We investigated NLR on mortality stratified by prevalent and incident MPN, essential thrombocythemia (ET), polycythemia vera (PV), myelofibrosis (MF), comorbidity burden (CCI-score), and the Triple-A risk score using hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI). NLR 1–1.9 was the reference level. During a median follow-up of 11.2 years, 197,802 deaths were recorded. All-cause mortality increased for a stepwise increasing NLR with a HR (95%CI) for NLR ≥ 6 of 2.06(2.03–2.09) for the whole population and 2.93(2.44–3.50) in prevalent MPN. ET, PV, and MF had a HR (95%CI) for NLR ≥ 2 of 2.14(1.71–2.69), 2.19(1.89–2.54), and 2.31(1.91–2.80). Results were similar for incident MPN. Mortality was higher for stepwise increasing NLR and CCI-score( p interaction < 2×10 –16 ), with a HR for NLR ≥ 6 of 2.23(2.17–2.29), 4.10(4.01–4.20), and 7.69(7.50–7.89), for CCI-score 0, 1–2, or ≥3. The Triple-A risk score demonstrated alignment with NLR. Increasing NLR and comorbidity burden were associated with lower survival in individuals without MPN but were even worse in prevalent and incident MPN, ET, PV, and MF.