2025, Volume 18, Issue 3, pp 257 – 264

Dynamic assessment of the inflammatory response in military personnel: a pilot study on ΔNLR and composite markers in operational environments

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Authors and Affiliations

Corresponding author Emil-Tiberius Trasca, Department of Surgery, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Craiova, Romania Dr. Stefan Odobleja Military Emergency Clinical Hospital, Craiova, Romania. E-mail: etrasca@yahoo.com

Authors contributed equally to this work

Abstract

In this pilot study, we investigated immune alterations in 178 military personnel exposed to extreme operational stress. We focused on the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and its change (ΔNLR) alongside composite inflammatory indices— Systemic Inflammation Response Index (SIRI), Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index (SII), and Inflammatory Index Cumulative (IIC). Blood analyses performed before and after deployment revealed a significant post-mission increase in NLR (1.9671±±±0.9174 vs. 1.6079±±±0.4973 pre-deployment), yielding an average ΔNLR of 0.3592±±±0.7642 (P < 0.0001). While basophil counts and several biochemical markers remained stable, notable changes in neutrophils and composite indices suggest a complex inflammatory activation. Importantly, correlation analyses confirmed that despite marked shifts in absolute values, the relative relationships between pre- and post-deployment measurements (e.g., NLR: r = 0.5533, P < 0.0001) were maintained. These findings imply that ΔNLR, together with SIRI, SII, and IIC, may serve as valuable biomarkers for dynamically monitoring the inflammatory response in military contexts, thereby enabling early identification of individuals at increased inflammatory risk.

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About this article

PMC ID: 12022735
PubMed ID: 
DOI: 10.25122/jml-2025-0056

Article Publishing Date (print): 3 2025
Available Online: 

Journal information

ISSN Printing: 1844-122X
ISSN Online: 1844-3117
Journal Title: Journal of Medicine and Life

Copyright License: Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.


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