There is some evidence suggesting that OSA is associated with low level of systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. Low level systemic inflammation and subsequent vascular damage has been implicated as the underlying mechanism responsible for comorbidities. Detection of altered inflammatory markers in OSAS patients may predict the degree of nocturnal sleep disturbance and associated systemic inflammation and presence of comorbidities. Recently, novel inflammatory biomarkers, such as neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) have been proposed as an indicator of systemic inflammation. To our knowledge, NLR has not been studied in OSAS. We conducted the present study to evaluate the association between OSAS and inflammatory markers CRP, ESR and NLR.

Inclusion Criteria: Subjects who were referred for polysomnography (PSG) testing and performed the test were included Exclusion Criteria: Patients with malignancy, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease or hypertension, chronic inflammatory processes, thyroid dysfunction, chronic hepatic disease, renal failure, any acute- subacute infectious disease within past 2 months, if data are incomplete such as blood sample testing results, if they were unable to perform complete PSG testing.

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Patients suffering from sleep apnea and were referred to perform polysomnoraphy constituted the study groups. There were grouped into 4 according to apnea- hypopnea scores: control, mild apnea, moderate apnea and severe apnea.