Objective: Alcohol intoxication frequently leads to emergency department admissions with a wide range of clinical severity. The prognostic role of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in this setting remains unclear. This study investigated the association between the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and disease severity, as well as its predictive value for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with alcohol intoxication.Methods: This multicenter, retrospective, cross-sectional study included patients hospitalized for alcohol intoxication. Demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were obtained from electronic health records. Group comparisons, correlation analyses, multivariable logistic regression, and ROC analyses were performed to assess the association between the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and clinical outcomes.Results: A total of 64 patients were included. Hemodialysis was required in 42.2% of patients, and in-hospital mortality was 20.3%. NLR was significantly higher in patients requiring hemodialysis (p = 0.014) and showed a positive correlation with length of hospital stay (rho = 0.29, p = 0.019). Ocular and neurological findings were strongly associated with hemodialysis requirement (both p 0.001). In ROC analysis, NLR demonstrated moderate discriminative ability for predicting hemodialysis requirement (AUC = 0.681). Multivariable logistic regression identified ocular findings as the strongest independent predictor, while the independent effect of NLR was limited.Conclusion: NLR is associated with markers of clinical severity and inflammatory burden in alcohol intoxication and correlates with hemodialysis requirement and length of hospital stay. However, its standalone predictive performance is limited. NLR may be used as a supportive biomarker alongside clinical assessment rather than as a sole decision-making tool.
Görgülügil et al. (Thu,) studied this question.