Evaluation of the association between red cell distribution width (anisocytosis) and degree of liver fibrosis in children with chronic liver diseases

Abstract

Summary: Background: Red cell distribution width (RDW) demonstrates the heterogeneity of red cell volume and is a component of the complete blood count. Recent studies, however, have reported that RDW is associated with increased mortality in many clinical conditions and found that high RDW is associated with an increase in all-cause mortality. Some studies have also reported the association between RDW values and the severity of liver diseases. It has been claimed that elevated RDW values positively correlate with MELD scores in different disease statuses of hepatitis B virus infection. In addition, RDW increased with the worsening of Child-Pugh grade in hepatic cirrhosis. Methods: This study investigated the clinical utility of RDW values for indicating the presence of liver fibrosis in children with chronic liver diseases. We have conducted a retrospective study on 413 patients. We collected demographic, clinical, and laboratory data and pathologic reports of the liver fibrosis stage from the medical record and analyzed them with SPSS. Result: In our study, there was no significant association between the values of RDW and different stages of fibrosis, but the association between the values of RDW and worsening of Child-Pugh score, APRI, RPR, FIB-4, and PELD score was significant. Conclusion: We cannot find any correlation between RDW and the stage of liver fibrosis. Key words: liver – RDW – fibrosis – cirrhosis