We would like to thank for the valuable contributions of our colleagues Tanoğlu and Karagöz [1] about our article “The relationship of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio with gastrointestinal bleeding in Henoch–Schonlein purpura” [2].

They pointed out that many conditions such as thyroid function abnormalities, diabetes mellitus, renal and/or hepatic failure and inflammatory diseases might potentially affect the NLR and should be mentioned in the article. None of our patients had any chronic diseases according to the parents’ statements. They also reminded that any kind of treatment such as steroids and antibiotics might alter NLR. So, they suggested to describe the prior medications in detail. We rechecked the patients’ files in terms of previous medications just before the admission. The most potent treatments, which may alter NLR, are corticosteroids. None of our patients were on steroid treatment at the time of diagnosis. Besides, none of our patients used nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs. Only a small number of patients (n = 7) were using antibiotics.

Lastly, they offered to state the elapsed time between obtaining the blood samples and measuring NLR, since a long waiting period prior to the analysis might affect NLR. The complete blood count analyses are performed in the same Coulter analyzer, which is routinely checked every month, in the central laboratory of our institution in regular intervals of one hour. Standard tubes with constant amount of EDTA are used. However, we must agree that there was not a standardized elapsed period for each patient in our retrospective study.

In conclusion, as we stated previously in our article, we have some limitations, such as the study’s retrospective design and inclusion of small number of patients. So, once again we suggest that prospective studies including larger number of patients are necessary to confirm and generalize our results.