Affiliations:
Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Changzheng Hospital, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Ren-Qian Zhong, MD. PhD. and Lin Zhou, MD. PhD., Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Changzheng Hospital, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200003, China. Tel./Fax: +86 021 33110236; E-mail: 13901628473@163.com (R.-Q. Zhong); lynnzhou36@163.com (L. Zhou).
Note: [1] These two authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Red blood cell distribution width (RDW), a routinely tested parameter of the complete blood count (CBC), has been reported to be increased in various cancers and correlated with the patients’ clinical characteristics. However, the significance of RDW in primary hepatocellular carcinoma (pHCC) is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between RDW and the clinical characteristics of pHCC patients. METHODS: Medical records of 110 treatment-naive pHCC patients were retrospectively reviewed. Their clinical characteristics on admission, including RDW, liver function tests and tumor stage, were extracted, and their relationships were analyzed using Spearman correlation and Kruskal-Wallis test. Sixty-eight healthy individuals were set as controls. RESULTS: RDW was significantly increased in pHCC patients and correlated with the liver function tests. However, no correlation between RDW and tumor stage was found. CONCLUSION: RDW may be used to assess the liver function, but not the tumor stage in pHCC patients.
Keywords: Red blood cell distribution width, hepatocellular carcinoma, liver function, Child-Pugh stage
