The Correlation between Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate and C-reactive Protein Ratio, and Lipid Profile in Dyslipidemia Patients with Dry Eye Disease.

Abstract

Introduction: Dyslipidemia (DLP) is an increase in lipid accumulation; as a result, hypertriglyceridemia causes body inflammation. One risk factor for inflammation is the development of dry eye disease (DED). This study aims to investigate the correlation between the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein ratio (ESR/CRP ratio) and lipid profile biomarkers as indicators for dyslipidemia in dry eye disease patients.

Methods: The study was designed based on a case-control study of n=200 patients with dyslipidemia in the King Abdulaziz Medical Center (KAMC) - Jeddah hospital community, who were randomly selected. The patient data were collected for two groups: the control group, dyslipidemia only (DLP; n= 144), and the study group, dyslipidemia with dry eye disease (DLPDED; n= 56). All patients' demographic and laboratory findings data were retrospectively extracted from the hospital records using the BestCare platform; then, the PRISM software analyzed the statistical data (GraphPad Inc., San Diego, CA, USA). A significance level of p <0.05 was adopted for validation.

Results: This study found that females were more common in DLP-DED patients than DLP patients. Moreover, DLP-DED patients have triglyceride values higher than DLP patients, with a statistically significant difference (p < 0.0001). Compared the correlation of ESR/CRP ratio between groups, only DLP-DED patients showed a positive correlation between ESR/CRP ratio and total cholesterol and between ESR/CRP ratio and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) in the DLP-DED group with statistically significant differences p = 0.0223 and p = 0.0393, respectively.

Discussion: The positive correlation between the ESR/CRP ratio and LDL and cholesterol levels in DLP-DED patients supported a previously published study on DED patients versus non- DED.

Conclusion: Given the significant correlations between the ESR/CRP ratio and lipid profile, examining the ESR/CRP ratio is recommended as routine screening of dyslipidemia patients with ocular surface diseases such as dry eye disease to provide clinically beneficial diagnosis and treatment approaches and prevent future eye complications in DLP patients.