White Blood Cells Count and Red Cell Distribution Width as Markers to use for interpretation of Pediatric Intensive Care Outcomes

Abstract

Background: The Red blood Cell Distribution Width (RDW or RCDW) is a measure of thevariationofRedBloodCell(RBC)volumethatisreportedaspartofastandardcompletebloodcount.Inthepast,RDWisusuallyusedforthedifferentialdiagnosisofanemia. RDWhasbeendemonstrated to be significantly associated with mortality and other adverse outcomes invarious clinical conditions. Our study aimed at studying the prognostic effect of red celldistribution width and its clinical implication on critically ill children admitted to the PediatricIntensive Care Unit (PICU). Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of critically illchildren admitted to Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Zagazig University Hospitals duringthe period of 6 months Including 40 critically ill infants and children, their age from 1 monthto 14 years. We limited our analysis to include patients under 14 years and in whom a CBCincluding RDW was obtained at 1^st day,4^th day and 7^th dayof PICU admission. Results: Thisstudy showed that statistically significant difference between the studied patients regardingRDW on 1^st dayand them regarding White blood cell count on fourth day and significantpositive correlation between RDW and CRP on 1^st day. Conclusion: RDW is a significantprognosticfactorforhospitalmortalityincriticallyillpatients.