STUDY OF RED CELL DISTRIBUTION WIDTH AS A NOVEL PREDICTIVE INDICATOR IN PREHYPERTENSIVE AND HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS

Abstract

Background: An increased RDW mirrors a profound deregulation of erythrocyte homeostasis involving both impaired erythropoiesis and abnormal red blood cell survival, which may be attributed to a variety of underlying metabolic abnormalities such as shortening of telomere length, oxidative stress, inflammation, poor nutritional status, dyslipidaemia, hypertension, erythrocyte fragmentation and alteration of erythropoietin function. High blood pressure does damage to endothelial cells that leads to the secretion of inflammatory cytokines which supresses erythropoiesis and inhibit red cell maturation and anisocytosis. Therefore, as a sensitive marker of inflammatory status in this process, RDW can be a potential predictor of hypertension in pre-hypertensive and normal individual. To provi Aim: de general information about RDW and its routine assessment, to review the most relevant implications in prehypertensive and hypertensive patients and give some insights about its potential clinical applications. Current Material and methods: study was observational cross sectional study conducted at the Department of Medicine in SHRI RAJENDRA GENERAL HOSPITAL (SRGH), Jhalawar Medical College, Jhalawar Rajasthan. A total 100 newly diagnosed hypertensive and pre hypertensive patients were included in the study. Data were analysed in SPSS 21. Independent t-test and Chi-square test were applied. P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. In this study, mean age of st Results: udy participants was 46.4±19.1 years and out of the 100 participants, maximum 40 were belongs to age <40 years followed by 37 in age of 41-60 years, 47 were male and 53 were female, 75 participants were diagnosed as hypertensive and 25 diagnosed as prehypertensive. In this study, mean RDW-CV and RDW-SD was 19.2±3.8 and 54.8±10.7 respectively and a statistically significant high RDW-CV and RDW-SD was found among hypertensive compare to pre-hypertensive patients. Also a statistically significant positive correlation of SBP and DBP was found with RDW-CV and RDW-SD. Conclusion: Our study concluded that RDW is significantly positively correlated with the blood pressure and increases as SBP and DBP increases. So RDW can be predictive marker for hypertension. This can be done routinely and easily in the laboratories, thereby giving the clinician a good supportive tool for diagnosing and preventing an adverse outcome.