Figure 10.

A schematic of our major findings and understanding of patient circulating leukocyte relation to cardiac surgery. Cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass increased the baseline levels of CD16 expression on circulating monocytes (non-classical) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) values seen 5 days post-surgery with no change in overall leukocyte counts. Moreover, a positive correlation between CD16 mean fluorescence index (MFI) and NLR was evident. At a later follow-up time-point (day 90), a downregulation of CD16 expression was observed that seems to revert to pre-op levels of expression. Pre-op NLR was shown to be significantly higher in patients that later developed AE than patients who did not, therefore, putting patients with higher NLR values pre-op at a higher risk of developing AE. Conversely, CD16 values were not significantly different between the two groups, however, showed a trend similar to NLR.