Leo Sher, M.D.

A research article, “High-lethality of suicide attempts associated with platelet to lymphocyte ratio and mean platelet volume in psychiatric inpatient setting” has been published in the World Journal of Biological Psychiatry online ahead of print (1).

The authors examined several biological parameters in 259 suicide attempters and 164 suicide non-attempters (controls). Study participants were recruited from January 1, 2014 to June 30, 2019 in Genoa, Italy. Blood tests included neutrophil count, lymphocyte count, platelet count, mean platelet volume, red blood cell count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, and red blood cell distribution width. The mean (±SD) age of the sample was 49.93 (±18.63) and 74.9% of the study participants were females.

Individuals with high-lethality suicide attempts had a higher number of neutrophils, mean platelet volume, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-lymphocyte ratio, and lower number of lymphocytes in comparison to both those with low-lethality suicide attempts and control group. When the multinomial regression was performed, only the mean platelet volume and the platelet-lymphocyte ratio were associated with high-lethality suicide attempts. The authors suggest that cell blood count might be considered a useful and feasible method to assess suicidal behavior in clinical practice.

Reference

1. Aguglia A, Amerio A, Asaro P, Caprino M, Conigliaro C, Giacomini G, Parisi VM, Trabucco A, Amore M, Serafini G. High-lethality of suicide attempts associated with platelet to lymphocyte ratio and mean platelet volume in psychiatric inpatient setting. World J Biol Psychiatry. 2020 May 28:1-9. doi: 10.1080/15622975.2020.1761033. Online ahead of print.