The Significance of inflammation markers in complete blood count in patients with fibromyalgia

Objective:  Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder mostly seen in women, it mainly characterized by diffuse body pain accompanied by chronic fatigue and depression-like mood disorders. Its etiology still remains unknown but in some studies, fibromyalgia has been reported to be an inflammatory disease several cytokines shown to be responsible for the possible inflammatory basis of the disease. No laboratory marker is currently available to diagnose the disease. We aimed to investigate the diagnostic significance of inflammation markers in fibromyalgia, including platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte (MLR) ratio, and mean platelet volume (MPV). Material and Methods: This retrospective and case-control study included 188 patients who were followed up and treated for fibromyalgia in physical therapy and rehabilitation outpatient clinic from 2017 through 2019 and 64 age-matched healthy controls. The PLR, NLR, MLR, MPV and vitamin D were calculated from the results of complete blood count test. The differences between the two groups were examined. Results: The mean age, hemoglobin levels, and erythrocyte sedimentation rates were not different between the groups. In fibromyalgia group, the values of PLR (p = 0.031), NLR (p = 0.044), MLR (p = 0.023), and MPV (p = 0.013) were higher than those in control group, whereas vitamin D levels were significantly lower (p = 0.021). In multivariate regression analysis, PLR, NLR and MLR were not found to be independent predictors (p> 0.05). Conclusion: The findings of this study reveal that NLR, MLR, PLR, and MPV are not independent markers for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia, suggesting that fibromyalgia does not appear to be an inflammatory disease.