Diabetes mellitus is a major global health problem, increasingly affecting the population across the world. Diabetic patients have an increased risk of developing micro and macro vascular diseases, and platelets may be involved as a causative agent with respect to altered platelet morphology and function. There are studies evaluating the association between Mean Platelet Volume (MPV) and HbA1c and its role in predicting glycaemic control with conflicting results. Thus the present study was conducted to assess the relationship between HbA1c levels and platelet activity (MPV), determine the association among MPV, glycemic control, and diabetic vascular complications and to evaluate the influence of improved glycemic control on MPV in type 2 diabetic patients.
Material: This was a hospital based observational comparative study on 100 cases of diabetes mellitus divided in 2 groups i.e Group A (HbA1c <7) and Group B (HbA1c >7) and 50 healthy controls in Group C in hospital wards and OPD of SMS Medical College, Jaipur.
Inclusion criteria: Age more than 18 years, and newly diagnosed or old cases of diabetes mellitus using the definition given by American Diabetes Association.
Exclusion criteria: Abnormal platelet count (<100 and >450×103/μL), Acute febrile illness, Use of drugs affecting platelet function, Male patients with Hb<12.5mg/dl and females with Hb<11.5 mg/dl and Pregnant females.
Observation: It was observed that mean MPV(fl) was maximum in Group B (13.35±1.27), followed by Group A (10.77±.77) and Group C (9.09±.85) and a significant (p-value<0.05) relation was found statistically. We also observed that mean HbA1c (%) was maximum in Group B (8.82±1.41), followed by Group A (6.66±.004) and Group C (5.67±.45) and a significant (p-value<0.05) relation was found statistically in these 3 groups. In group B, at baseline MPV(fl) levels were more (13.35±1.26) than at follow up after glycemic control of 3mths (12.13±1.20) and this was found to be statistically significant.
Conclusion: We found that Mean platelet volume in diabetic mellitus type 2 patients was significantly higher than non-diabetic group. We also found that the mean platelet volume in uncontrolled diabetic group (HbA1c more than 7 percent) was significantly higher than controlled diabetic group (HbA1c less than 7 percent). Our study showed that in diabetes mellitus, platelets become more reactive and aggregable and their mean volume (MPV) is increased. We also found that increase in HbA1c concentration was directly proportional to increased MPV.
© Journal of the Association of Physicians of India 2011.