Blood mean platelet volume may be predictive for disease course in the cases with pemphigus vulgaris.

Abstract

Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) is an autoimmune blistering disorder treated with immunosuppressive agents. The patients with pemphigus vulgaris have remission and relapses and there is a need to have easy accessible and cheap laboratory monitoring markers. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the course of the disease and the changes of the levels of neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lypmhocyte ratio (PLR), mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and mean platelet volume (MPV) in the patients with PV. Pemphigus patients (n=43) and healthy controls (n=40) were included in the study, retrospectively. Clinical and laboratory data, including C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, hemoglobin, hematocrit, red cell distribution width, lymphocyte count, neutrophil count, platelet count, MPV, of the patients and healthy controls were obtained from our institutional computerized medical database. NLR and MPV levels in patients are higher than health controls (p<0.05) MPV changes are consistent with disease course according to variance analysis. MPV cut-off level is 8.45 and the specificity and sensitivity of this cut-off level is 65% and 76% to predict the pemphigus attacks, respectively (p=0.427). NL ratio, PL ratio and MPV may be accepted as inflammatory markers. MPV levels may be recommended as a marker for the determination of relapses in the patients with pemphigus vulgaris.