Title: Reticulated Platelets in Egyptian Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C Infection
Authors: Noha H Boshnak, Hoda A Abdelsattar
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i2.75
Abstract
Background: Thrombocytopenia, a frequent problem in patients with chronic hepatitis C, occurs due to several factors. The aim of this study is to evaluate reticulated platelets percent (RP%) in patients with chronic hepatitis C as an indicator of platelet production.
Method: Reticulated platelets were analyzed with flow cytometry using whole-blood, which is dual-labelled with monoclonal anti-glycoprotein (GP)-III antibody (CD61) for platelet identification and thiazole orange as platelet mRNA stain.
Results: Forty four patients with chronic hepatitis C were enrolled in this study, 32 of them were thrombocytopenic and 12 were non-thrombocytopenic. The median age was 50 years (range: 23 – 67 years), 59.1% were females and 40.9% were males. The RP% was significantly higher in thrombocytopenic than non-thrombocytopenic patients (P < 0.001). Highly significant inverse correlation was found between RP% and platelet count. Furthermore, Platelet count correlated directly with serum albumin levels and inversely with each of INR values and serum ALT levels. About 96.9% of the thrombocytopenic patients had splenomegaly, while non-thrombocytopenic patients had normal size of the spleen.
Conclusion: Our data demonstrates that measurement of RP% could be useful screening test in thrombocytopenic patients with chronic hepatitis C to evaluate platelet production.
Keywords: Egyptian, HCV, Low platelet count, Reticulated Platelet.
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