Association of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio with bone mineral density in post-menopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 2 GRADE¹ Evidence Profile for studies on the association of NLR with BMD in post-menopausal women

Certainty assessment							№ of patients		Certainty⁷	Importance
№ of studies	Study design	Risk of bias²	Inconsistency³	Indirectness⁴	Imprecision⁵	Publication bias⁶	Participants, n	Cases, n	Certainty⁷	Importance
Osteoporosis
7	observational studies	not serious	very serious	not serious	not serious	none	1499	871	⨁◯◯◯ Very low	CRITICAL
Osteopenia
7	observational studies	not serious	very serious	not serious	not serious	none	1358	810	⨁◯◯◯ Very low	CRITICAL

¹Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation
²Risk of bias based on Newcastle-Ottawa Scale
³When I² was < 30% inconsistency considered as Not serious limitation, > 50 considered as serious and more than 75% considered as very serious limitation
⁵Serious limitations when there was fewer than 4000 participants for each outcome and very serious limitations when there was fewer than 300 participants for each outcome
⁶Funnel plot revealed no asymmetry; neither test of publication bias approached P < 0.10
⁷Data from cohort studies begin with a grade of “LOW”. Downgraded for very serious inconsistency

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