Mean Platelet Volume as a Predictive Marker for GDM

Abstract

Background: Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is defined as first onset of any glucose intolerance diagnosed in pregnancy and certain proportion has risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life, but risk of type 1 is also increased. Screening at the earliest and enhanced diagnostic tools can help reduce burden of GDM and further progression as it is majorly a lifestyle disease. One of the easiest and cost-effective inflammatory markers are thrombocyte indices. Objective: To determine the potential value of MPV, an inexpensive and easy tool obtained from routine complete blood picture used to study morphology of platelet and whether it can be an indicator in prediction of GDM. Methods: Hospital based comparative study was done on 100 antenatal women attending OPD during first trimester. Case group includes women with recently diagnosed GDM as per guidelines of American diabetes Association by one-step 2-hour 75g OGTT and the cut off values were considered as per IADPSG. MPV is assessed amongst cases and controls and its association was studied in both groups. Results: The present study observed that MPV values of the GDM patients were significantly higher than those compared to normal pregnancies. The current investigation reveals that MPV values in GDM patients significantly exceed those observed in normal pregnancies. Specifically, the median MPV in the GDM group is 8.6 (IQR: 6.9-11.2), while in the non-GDM group, it is 7.4 (IQR: 4.8-10.4). The Mann-Whitney U test yielded a statistic of 905, with a corresponding p-value of 0.0175, which falls below the significance threshold of 0.05. Hence, there exists a statistically significant disparity in MPV between the groups. Conclusion: GDM is found to have underlying chronic inflammatory background and varied insulin resistance which states that these parameters may exist even before clinically diagnosable glucose intolerance occurs. This may direct that GTT might not detect GDM if done early in pregnancy, but inflammatory markers might diagnose as they have already been existing. One such economical marker is the MPV as a part of routine CBC. Keywords: Mean Platelet Volume; Gestational Diabetes Mellitus; IADPSG; Exclusive Real World Evidence