Evaluation of red cell distribution width (RDW) in diabetic nephropathy patients

Abstract

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality of diabetes mellitus (DM) patients. Inflammation has a pivotal role in DN pathogenesis. Red cell distribution width (RDW) is a current parameter which has been supposed to be a marker of ineffective erythropoiesis depending on chronic inflammation and neurohumoral activation. We aimed to compare levels RDW which is a marker of inflammation between DM patients with and without diabetic nephropathy and also evaluate the effect of diabetic nephropathy on RDW in a total of 101 type 2 DM patients (58 diabetic nephropathy patients and 43 patients without diabetic nephropathy). All clinical and laboratory data including BUN, creatinine, hemogram, fasting blood glucose, HbA1c, lipid profile, and blood pressure levels were recorded. SPSS 17.0 was used for the statistical analysis of data. RDW values of diabetic nephropathy patients was significantly higher than those of patients without diabetic nephropathy (p=0.032). Fasting blood glucose, HbA1c, LDL-cholesterol levels and duration of diabetes were statistically significantly different (respectively p=0.01, 0.01, 0.048, <0.001), whereas triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, creatinine levels, height and weight of the patients were not statistically significantly different (respec-tively p=0.939, 0.347, 0.128, 0.418, 0.851) between groups. Since RDW index is a cheap and easy method its use can be recommended in the evaluation of inflammation and atherosclerotic process in diabetic nephropathy patients. © 2016, Logos Medical Publishing. All rights reserved.