Objective:
Smoking has an important role on coronary events. Impaired thrombocyte function and morphology have been shown in patients with cardiac events. We aimed to study the thrombocyte parameters in young smoking adults.
Material and Methods:
One hundred thirty eight cases were enrolled into the study. Fifty one of the cases were non smokers whereas 36 were smoking 1 to 10 cigarettes per day and 51 were smoking over 10 cigarettes per day. All the demographic, lipid profile and complete blood count were recorded.
Results:
The mean age of non smokers and smokers over 10 cigarettes per day was 21.41±2.23 and 22.35±2.84 years, respectively. We detected no statistically significant difference between non smokers and smokers of less than 10 cigarettes per day. Mean platelet volume (MPV) was significantly higher in smokers of more than 10 cigarettes per day when compared to non smokers (9.17±0.88 and 10.0±0.92, p=0.016, respectively). We detected no significance in other parameters. We detected a positive correlation between the amount of cigarettes smoked per day and MPV values in Pearson correlation analysis (r=0.39, p=0.017).
Conclusion:
As a result we detected increased MPV values in young male smokers when compared to controls. There is need for prospective studies with larger groups for MPV could be a marker for atherosclerosis.
Keywords: Smoking, mean platelet volume, atherosclerosis