In the presence of “elevated ESR and/or CRP and at least 1 other suggestive laboratory feature (lymphopenia, neutrophilia, thrombocytopenia, hyponatremia, or hypoalbuminemia),” the next tier of investigations (ferritin, d-dimer, PT, PTT, fibrinogen, troponin I, NT-pro-BNP) should be performed (75). Here, NPPB is linked to lymphopenia.