The Clinical Usefulness of Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration in Patients with Pneumoconiosis.

Abstract

We investigated the clinical usefulness of mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in patients with pneumoconiosis. We retrospectively investigated the medical records from 52 patients with pneumoconiosis, and erythrocyte parameters were analyzed in pneumoconiosis patients with different stages. Here, we found that the values of MCHC were significantly lower in III stage pneumoconiosis than those with I/II stage (p = 0.024), and there was no significantly difference in MCHC between smoking pneumoconiosis patients and non-smoking pneumoconiosis patients. A negatively correlation between MCHC and disease stage was observed in patients with pneumoconiosis (r = -0.298, p = 0.032). In multiple linear regression analysis, the MCHC was found to be independently associated with advanced pneumoconiosis in patients with pneumoconiosis (p=0.011). The results of logistic regression analysis indicated that decreased MCHC was an independent risk factor of advanced pneumoconiosis in patients with pneumoconiosis (OR: 0.936, CI95%: 0.877-0.999, p = 0.046). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the optimal cutoff value of MCHC was 330 g/L to identify advanced pneumoconiosis with the area under the curve of 0.694 (CI95%:0.550-0.839, p = 0.018). The decreased MCHC is associated with advanced pneumoconiosis, and MCHC may be used as a monitoring marker for follow-up of pneumoconiosis patients.