الفهرس 
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Abstract
Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is frequent and severe infection associated with a high mortality.
The incidence of CAP requiring hospitalization is 20.6 per 10,000 cases each year. CAP is associated with a high risk of mortality especially among the elderly and among patients with co-morbid conditions.
Biomarkers are increasingly used to identify specific patients at risk, to judge the severity of illness and prognosis of CAP. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a simple parameter to assess easily the inflammatory status of a subject. It has proven its usefulness as a predictor and a marker of inflammatory or infectious pathologies and postoperative complications.
The study included 20 males & 10 females ranging in age from 66 to 83 years with a mean age of 72.90 ± 5.14years. Mortality in this study was 40%. This study found that there is highly significant correlation between neutrophil/lymphocyte count ratio (NLCR) and the outcome of CAP patients compared to other traditional inflammatory biomarkers such as CRP and WBC. NLR was higher among patients who died compared to patients who improved and it remained high with no significant difference in follow up samples.
In conclusion NLR showed emerging prognostic value in predicting outcome and 30-day mortality rate in community acquired pneumonia. Unlike many other inflammatory markers and bioassays, NLR is an inexpensive, easy to handle, cost effective and readily available marker that is obtained from basic blood count providing an additional advantage in predicting hospitalization period and long-term mortality.