Red Blood Cell Distributions (RDW, RDW-CW) and Lymphocyte Monocyte Ratios (LMR) for the Detection of Malignant Thyroid Nodules in the Preoperative Period.

Thyroid surgery is the most common type of surgery among endocrine surgeries. This surgery is performed for patients with suspected malignancy, patients diagnosed with malignancy, and toxic nodular goiter. In addition to vocal cord injury, which is the most important complication of thyroid surgery, hypocalcemia due to hypoparathyroidism and surgical wound complications (such as hematoma, and fistula) can also be observed, and malignancy surgery increases the risk of recurrent laryngeal nerve injury. Therefore, it is important to differentiate these groups using non-invasive methods before surgery.

Tumor-related inflammation is activated as a result of bone marrow and inflammation induced by malignancies. Insufficiently controlled or uncontrolled inflammatory activity may be responsible for malignant transformation. Lymphocyte monocyte ratio and red blood cell distribution are parameters (RDW, RDW-CW) previously studied in terms of cancers.

Our aim in this study is to reveal the RDW, RDW-CW, and LMR calculated from complete blood count parameters in the preoperative period, as an indicator of malignant inflammatory response, in a non-invasive and inexpensive way before surgery or biopsy is performed to distinguish nodular goiter and thyroid malignancy.