Neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) predicts clinical outcomes in patients with stroke. Aneurysm wall enhancement (AWE) on high-resolution vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging (HR-VWI) is an inflammation marker for intracranial aneurysm (IA). This study aims to evaluate the association of NLR as a peripheral blood inflammatory marker with circumferential AWE in patients with IA.
We analyzed data of consecutive patients harboring IAs between September 2017 and December 2021 at our institution. The peripheral blood inflammatory indicators were compared between patients with ruptured and unruptured IAs. The presence of circumferential AWE in unruptured IA was identified and quantitatively measured using the aneurysm-to-pituitary stalk contrast ratio (CRstalk) on HR-VWI. We used the optimal cutoff value of 0.5 for CRstalk to differentiate circumferential AWE in unruptured IAs. We assessed the relationship of clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics with circumferential AWE and CRstalk ≥0.5 in unruptured IAs.
The study group was composed of one hundred and twenty-five patients with 142 IAs. NLR level at admission was significantly higher in patients with ruptured IAs than those with unruptured IAs (7.55 vs. 1.81;
NLR is a valuable peripheral blood inflammatory marker is more often in the rupture status of IA and was associated with circumferential AWE on HR-VWI in unruptured IA.