Evaluation of hematological inflammatory markers in children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Abstract

Aim: This study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and inflammation, using hematologic inflammatory parameters in a large sample of children and adolescents.

Method: This retrospective study comprises 347 children and adolescents with ADHD between 6 and 17 years of age who met the inclusion criteria as well as 205 healthy children and adolescents in the control group. Serum parameters such as white blood cell (WBC), neutrophil, lymphocyte, platelet, monocyte, eosinophil and basophil counts, mean platelet volume (MPV), and platelet distribution width (PDW) were recorded from complete blood count tests at the time of admission, while neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and other ratios were calculated based on these counts.

Results: NLR, PLR, MPV, PDW, WBC and neutrophil counts were significantly higher in children and adolescents with ADHD than in the control group. In the ADHD group, NLR, WBC and neutrophil counts were significantly higher in girls than in boys.

Conclusions: The results of this study support the hypothesis that inflammation plays an important role in the complex pathophysiology of ADHD. In addition, our data confirm that easily obtainable and reliable hematological parameters can be used when investigating the role of inflammation in ADHD etiology (Tab. 4, Ref. 44).

Keywords: ADHD; inflammation; mean platelet volume; neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio platelet/lymphocyte ratio..