Platelet distribution width as a prognostic factor in patients with COPD – pilot study

Adam J Białas,1,2,* Claudio Pedone,3,* Wojciech J Piotrowski,1,2 Raffaele Antonelli Incalzi3 1Department of Pneumology and Allergy, Medical University of Lodz, Łódź, Poland; 2Healthy Aging Research Centre (HARC), Medical University of Lodz, Łódź, Poland; 3Department of Geriatrics, Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Rome, Italy *These authors contributed equally to this work Background: Platelets may actively participate in inflammation in COPD. Platelet distribution width (PDW), a measure of platelets’ volume heterogeneity, may increase in platelets’ activation. We hypothesized that PDW may be a marker of hypercoagulation, which plays a significant role in conditions associated with worse survival of patients with COPD, eg, acute myocardial infarction and other forms of ischemic heart disease.Methods: Retrospective analysis of 79 patients. Variables were compared after grouping patients according to the upper normal limit of PDW, using Welch’s t-tests or Mann–Whitney U, and chi-square tests. Survival in the two groups was compared using the Kaplan–Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression.Results: Ten patients presented values of PDW above 16 fL, which was the upper limit of normality for our laboratory. Compared to patients with normal PDW, they had lower forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75% of vital capacity (FEF 25–75) – 35% of reference value vs 57% (P=0.003) and peak expiratory flow – 39% vs 54% (P