Comparison Between Celiac Patients and Healthy Control Group Regarding Vitamin-Mineral Levels and Complete Blood Count Parameters

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: We aimed to compare the mean platelet volume (MPV) and plateletcrit (PCT) and vitamin-mineral levels in pediatric celiac disease patients with the healthy control group and to compare the results with the literature. METHODS: In this study, clinical and laboratory data of 80 pediatric patients diagnosed with celiac disease (CD) between July 2017 and December 2018 and 42 healthy children in the same age group were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of age and gender (p=0.383, and p=0.462, respectively). The frequency of anemia, folate, iron and vitamin D deficiencies was higher in celiac patients compared to the control group (p=0.001, p=0.027, p<0.001, and p<0.001, respectively). When the patients were evaluated according to their complete blood count and vitamin-mineral levels; hemoglobin (Hb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), ferritin and vitamin D levels were found to be significantly lower in the CD group compared to the control group (p<0.001, p=0.026, p<0.00, and p=0.001, respectively). Platelet (PLT), PCT, MPV levels were found to be significantly higher in the CD group compared to the control group (p=0.010, p<0.001, and p<0.001, respectively). We found a weakly negative correlation between the vitamin D levels and the degree of the Marsh classification (r: -0.273, and p=0.023). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Our study have shown that MPV, PCT values are higher and Hb, folate, iron and vitamin D levels are lower in patients with CD compared to healthy controls. We recommend investigating other nutrient deficiencies besides iron deficiency, especially in treatment-resistant anemias. We think that the correlation between vitamin D levels and the degree of histological damage should be elucidated with larger-scale and more comprehensive studies.