ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neuroinflammation and Neuropathy
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1658854
This article is part of the Research TopicBiomarker Discovery and Validation in Neurological DiseasesView all articles
Systemic Inflammation versus Clinical Demographics: Patient Age Surpasses the Platelet-to-Lymphocyte Ratio in Differentiating Secondary Trigeminal Neuralgia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Peking University People's Hospital, Beijing, China
- 2Hebei Medical University,, Shijiazhuang, China
- 3University of South China Hengyang Medical School, Hengyang, China
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Background: Objective biomarkers to differentiate trigeminal neuralgia (TN) subtypes are lacking.This study aimed to evaluate the utility of the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and neutrophil-to- lymphocyte ratio (NLR) for distinguishing primary TN from secondary TN caused by meningiomas (STN-M) or epidermoid cysts (STN-E).In this retrospective study of 53 patients, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to compare adjusted biomarker levels while controlling for confounders. The diagnostic performance of these hematological markers and patient age was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and their independent predictive values were determined by multivariable logistic regression to differentiate the two secondary TN types.Results: After adjusting for confounders, the mean PLR was significantly lower in the STN-M group compared to the STN-E group (p = 0.036), while NLR showed no significant difference. Notably, when comparing diagnostic performance for the secondary etiologies, patient age demonstrated a higher area under the curve (AUC = 0.962; 95% CI: 0.897-1.000) than PLR (AUC = 0.793; 95% CI: 0.614-0.972).Multivariable regression identified age as the most influential variable, showing a strong trend toward significance (p = 0.051), while PLR was not an independent predictor (p = 0.197).While this study identified PLR as a potential auxiliary biomarker, its most crucial finding is that the simple demographic feature of patient age is the primary and more powerful discriminator for differentiating STN-M-from STN-E. This highlights that while novel biomarkers should be explored, the foundational importance of basic clinical parameters must not be overlooked in the pursuit of diagnostic precision.
Keywords: Trigeminal Neuralgia, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, Epidermoid cyst, Age Factors, Meningioma
Received: 05 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Zhang, Hao, Wang, Peng, Chang, Wang and Ouyang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ruen Liu, Peking University People's Hospital, Beijing, China
Jia Ouyang, Peking University People's Hospital, Beijing, China
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