Does Mean Platelet Volume to Lymphocyte Ratio Associates with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Its Subtypes?

INTRODUCTION: Hemogram parameters are considered as inflammatory markers in various diseases. The objective of this study was to assess mean platelet volume to lymphocyte ratio (MPVLR) of subjects with IBS and to compare to those in healthy population.METHODS: Patients with IBS whose admissions to our outpatient internal medicine clinic were enrolled to the study. Patients with IBS were divided into two groups according to the predominant symptom, either IBS diarrhea predominant (IBS-D) or IBS constipation predominant (IBS-C). Healthy volunteers were enrolled as control group. General characteristics and MPVLR levels of the groups compared.RESULTS: The MPVLR of IBS-C, IBS-D and control groups were 0.005 (0.001), 0.004 (0.001) and 0.003 (0.001), respectively (p<0.001). Post Hoc test revealed that MPVLR of IBS-C and IBS-D groups were similar (p=0.44) and MPVLR of control groups was significantly lower than that of the IBS-C (p<0.001) and IBS-D (p<0.001) groups.DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION: The main outcome of present study was that MPVLR could be used as a marker of IBS. However, it is not useful in differentiating IBS constipation predominance from IBS diarrhea predominance. In conclusion, despite increased MPVLR could not differentiate IBS constipation predominance from the IBS diarrheapredominance, it could be useful in establishing the diagnosis of IBS.