High monocyte level and low lymphocyte to monocyte ratio in autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to investigate the level of peripheral blood mononuclear cells and their ratios which may point to the immunological mechanisms involved in the etiopathogenesis of ASD.

Method: The complete blood count parameters of the 45 ASD cases were compared with those of healthy controls.Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) was performed to measure the disease severity.

Results: The monocytes of ASD group were significantly higher; and the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) was lower than the controls’. LMR and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio were found to be predictors of ASD. The decrease in LMR (B: −0.744; P=0.035; CI: −1.431 to −0.056) and the increase in age (B: 0.432; P=0.045; CI: 0.011–0.853) were related to high CARS scores in linear regression analyses.

Conclusions: The results of this study support the role of altered immune cell counts and ratios in ASD. A high monocyte level and low LMR may have diagnostic values in autism.

Keywords:

• ASD
• autism
• CBC
• immunity
• LMR
• lymphocyte
• monocyte
• NLR

Acknowledgments

There is not any source of funding in this research. The data collected retrospectively from the database of the Education and Research Hospital.