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

AIM: This study aims to investigate whether there is a relationship between attention-defi cit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and infl ammation, using hematologic infl ammatory 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 signifi cantly higher in children and adolescents with ADHD than in the control group. In the ADHD group, NLR, WBC and neutrophil counts were signifi cantly higher in girls than in boys. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study support the hypothesis that infl ammation plays an important role in the complex pathophysiology of ADHD. In addition, our data confi rm that easily obtainable and reliable hematological parameters can be used when investigating the role of infl ammation in ADHD etiology (Tab. 4, Ref. Text in PDF www.elis.sk