Variations in platelet indices in hypercholesterolemia patients in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Hypercholesterolemia is defined as high levels of cholesterol in the blood. Platelet indices include: Plateletcrit (PCT), Platelet Distribution Width (PDW) and Mean platelet volume (MPV). Hypercholesterolemia is associated with the increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis which in turn results in platelet activation and thrombotic events. This study is aimed to evaluate the variations in platelet indices in adults with hypercholesterolemia which may be significant in indicating cardiovascular diseases. It is a retrospective case-control study which includes 50 patients with a total cholesterol level of more than 170mg/dl as the study group and 50 healthy controls with normal lipid profile parameters. Data were collected from the lipid profile register in the Biochemistry department of Saveetha Medical College for 3 months duration. The fasting blood samples were run in the machine ‘vitros 5600 dry chemistry’. The lipid profile values included in this study were Total cholesterol, HDL and TGL. The platelet indices were collected from the automated haematology analyzer 'Sysmex XN 1000' from the Pathology Department, Saveetha Medical College. The data collected were tabulated and analysed using SPSS software. Statistical tool used is the independent T-test. The mean value of the platelet parameters such as MPV, PCT and PDW in the study group was 10.397061, .3000, and 12.452 respectively and that of the control group was 9.907480, .2882, 11.174 respectively. On comparing the platelet parameters such as MPV, PCT and PDW between the study and the control group it was observed that there was a significant variation in MPV and PDW. In the independent sample test, the p-value of MPV, PCT and PDW were 0.21, 0.481 and 0.008, respectively. Thus MPV and PDW shows a significant variation between the study and the control group as it is higher in hypercholesterolemia patients (p-value is <0.05).