Akhila Eswaran, Anil Philip Kunnath*, Goh Mun Hon, Yasmin Ayob Binti Ayob and Ponnarasi Tharmajan
Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is a major cause of mortality worldwide and in Malaysia. Early screening and diagnosis reduce the mortality rate of this disease by 15%-30%. CHD is caused by atherosclerosis and platelets have been found to play a major role in the development of atherosclerotic lesions. Although other biomarkers exist for CHD, platelet indices can be detected earlier and are routinely available. Hence this project was undertaken to study the relationship between platelet indices and CHD, as well as to find the diagnostic significance of platelet indices by comparing with other inflammatory biomarkers of CHD. This is a case control study carried out from July 2019 to September 2019, at the National Heart Institute, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The study population consisted of 100 normal control subjects and 100 case study subjects. Once eligibility was confirmed, patient data was filled in the case study forms, while the observational laboratory data consisting of platelet indices, were collected from the Sysmex XN-1000 analyser. Statistical analysis was then carried out using the SPSS 16.0 Software, whereby an independent sample ttest was done and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results showed that the levels of PDW, MPV and P-LCR were increased significantly (p-value less than 0.05) in CHD patients, while the levels of PC and PCT between the two groups showed no statistically significant difference. Nevertheless, it was found that these elevations could also be due to other risk factors, such as gender, smoking, Diabetes Mellitus, and hypertension. Hence, further research should be carried out to study the potential mechanisms behind the increase of platelet indices levels as a result of CHD alone, as it has the potential to be a beneficial risk predicting factor for CHD.
