Response to the Letter: Mean Platelet Volume and Related Parameters May Not Contribute to the Diagnosis in Patients with Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm

Abstract

We carefully read the comments of dear colleagues Cengiz Beyan and Esin Beyan[1]. about our article titled “Mean Platelet Volume and Related Parameters May not Contribute to the Diagnosis in Patients with Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm”[2]. Beyan et al.[1] commented that “The control group did not consist of healthy volunteers, and it was made up of individuals who applied in the hospital at the same time. The fact that the control group is not composed of healthy volunteers and does not represent the society makes it difficult to interpret the results obtained.”. Our study results have a statistically significant value, and while we have excluded the patients previously diagnosed with hematological malignancy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (or COPD), autoimmune liver disease, cirrhosis, metastatic bone marrow infiltration, acute or chronic inflammatory disease — such as physical trauma, tonsillitis, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and active hepatitis —, and current or recent treatment (in the past three months) with oral or intravenous steroids or other medications that might cause pancytopenia from the control group according to their background, it is possible that all the exclusion criteria cannot be made in a retrospective study and that there can be pre-analytical and analytical errors, but this does not change the statistical difference. Additionally, Beyan et al.[1] tried to draw attention that mean platelet volume (MPV) is a complete blood count parameter whose measurement has not been standardized to date and, therefore, it has been reported to have no role in diagnosis and prognosis of acquired diseases according to a study, but there are many studies about the prognostic value of MPV in many clinical diseases. Vardon-Bounes et al.[3] reported that MPV was an independent predictive factor of 90-day mortality. They suggested that continuous monitoring of MPV may be a useful parameter to stratify mortality risk in septic shock. Ma et al.[4] reported that high MPV can be considered as an independent biomarker for predicting three-month mortality in patients with hepatitis B virus-related decompensated cirrhosis. Lee Response to the Letter: Mean Platelet Volume and Related Parameters May Not Contribute to the Diagnosis in Patients with Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm