The effect of standard therapy on mean platelet volume in patients with chronic hepatitis C

Introduction: Chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection is a systemic disorder that can lead to liver inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular cancer. The mean platelet volume (MPV) is widely used as an inflammatory marker to evaluate the platelet function and the status of systemic inflammation. Aim: To determine the pre- and post-treatment MPV values in CHC patients who were administered a 48-week antiviral therapy based on systemic inflammation. Material and methods: We enrolled 28 patients, diagnosed with CHC genotype 1b, who received a 48-week antiviral therapy and attended regular follow-up, and 28 healthy individuals. In diagnosing CHC, a positive anti-HCV for a minimum duration of 6 months and a positive serum HCV RNA were accepted as the criteria. The patients were assigned to one of two groups based on their group 1 (pre-treatment values) and group 2 (post-treatment values) after 3 months therapy. We analysed and compared the blood samples of all of the groups. Results: The MPV value was 8.89 +/- 1.20 in group 1 and 8.00 +/- 1.07 in group 2, and 8.21 +/- 1.18 in the control group. The value in group 1 was detected to be statistically significantly different from that in group 2 and the control group (p < 0.0001, p = 0.045, respectively). No statistically significant difference was observed between group 2 and the control group (p = 0.455). Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that MPV could represent an inexpensive marker for use in assessing low-grade inflammation in patients with CHC.