ROLE OF MEAN PLATELET VOLUME AS A MARKER OF DISEASE ACTIVITY IN PATIENTS WITH ULCERATIVE COLITIS

Yusuf Coşkun

Dişkapi Yildirim Beyazit Training and Research Hospital, Department of Gastroenterology, Ankara, Turkey

Objective: Treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) is based on disease activity. There isn’t widely accepted single indicator or group of parameters with high precision to determine the level of disease activity. The aim of this study is to determine the mean platelet volume (MPV) in the disease activity of ulcerative colitis.

Materials and methods: 83 patients with UC were enrolled in this study, and double samples were taken from each patient both in activation and remission phase. In order to evaluate the disease activity, MPV, Neutrophil (Neu), platelet count (Plt) in activation and remission phase of each patient were compared.

Results: 83 patients (30 females, 53 males, mean age was 43.23±12.63 years) with UC were enrolled in this study, double samples from each patient (166 samples) were compared. MPV value was significantly decreased in patients with active UC compared to inactive UC and healthy donors (p=0.001). Additionally MPV value was significantly increased in controls compared to patients with inactive UC (p=0.016). However, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of MPV wasn’t provided a statistically discriminative value in differentiating active from inactive UC. 

Conclusion: This is the first study to analyze mean platelet volume (MPV) in active-inactive phases of the disease course in ulcerative colitis, which is comparing blood samples taken during remission and activation periods in the same patient. Although there was significant difference in measurements of our patient population, we did not find consistent cut-off levels for MPV value to reliably use as distinct activity indicator.