Liver biopsy is the gold standard procedure for documenting liver damage in chronic hepatitis C (CHC), as for many other chronic liver diseases. Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a laboratory marker obtained from complete blood count (CBC) analysers in routine clinical practice. The goal of the present study was to evaluate whether MPV would be useful in predicting liver histologic severity in CHC.

A total of 59 patients with CHC and 25 control subjects were recruited into the present study. There were 26 men and 33 women in the CHC group and 12 men and 13 women in the control group. MPV was recorded at the time of admission. The clinical characteristics of CHC patients, including demographics, laboratory and liver biopsy findings, were reviewed.

A statistically significant increase in MPV values was observed in CHC patients (8.54±0.63 fL) compared to healthy controls (7.65±0.42 fL) (P<0.001). Moreover, MPV values were significantly higher among patients with advanced fibrosis as compared to those with mild fibrosis (8.99±0.57 fL vs. 8.19±0.50 fL P<0.001). Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis suggested that the optimum cut-off point for MPV value in advanced fibrosis was 8.75 fL. (Sensitivity: 80.8%, specificity: 81.8%, positive predictive value [PPV] 77.8%, negative predictive value [NPV] 84.4%, accuracy 81.3%, AUC: 0.98 P<0.001)

The current study showed that MPV is increased in CHC with advanced fibrosis. Calculation of MPV along with the use of other markers may give further information about liver fibrosis severity in CHC.