Is mean platelet volume increased in behcet's disease with thrombosis?

Dear the Editor, We have been interested in the mean platelet volume (MPV) measured by automated cell analyzer and were studying on the correlation between MPVs and various diseases (Lee and Kim 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). In the meanwhile, we read the article by Acikgoz and colleagues on the increased MPV in Behcet’s disease (BD) with thrombotic tendency (Acikgoz et al. 2010). In this article, the authors stated that MPV was significantly higher in patients with BD compared to the control groups. BD occurs most frequently between latitudes 30° and 45° north in Asian and Eurasian populations an area that coincides with the Old Silk Route and its clinical manifestations are recurrent oral ulcers, genital ulcers and ocular disease (Mendes et al. 2009). We aimed to observe whether MPV are helpful to distinguish BD from control groups and BD patients with various clinical manifestations. So, we measured MPV in 220 (female: 85) healthy control groups, 105 (female: 73) patients in BD. The healthy control candidates were selected among healthy people who visited the Health Promotion Center of Hanyang University Hospital for the purpose of regular checkups without any pathologic conditions who were later confirmed to have no abnormal findings. Blood samples were drawn at the time of initial diagnosis and complete blood cell count analyses were performed with Sysmex XE-2100 automated cell counter (Sysmex, Kobe, Japan). We collected blood in tubes containing ethylene diamine tetracetetic acid and analyzed the samples within one hour. The method of measuring MPV was electrical impedance measurement. The BD patients were divided into subgroups with or without each clinical manifestation of thrombosis, genital ulcer and uveitis. MPV was lower in patients with BD than control groups (Table 1). There was no difference in white blood cell (WBC) and MPV in BD patients with or without clinical manifestations such as thrombosis, genital ulcers (Table