A STUDY ON RED CELL DISTRIBUTION WIDTH IN HYPERTENSIVE, PRE HYPERTENSIVE AND NORMOTENSIVE INDIVIDUALS.

Introduction: Red cell distribution width (RDW), expressed in femtoliters (), is a measure of the variation in the size of circulating erythrocytes. Due to its close relation to inammation RDW can be used as a tool for early diagnosis, as an inammatory marker, and a mortality indicator in case of hypertension which is a chronic inammatory state. In this study we aim to observe the mean value of red cell distribution width (RDW) in hypertensive, pre hypertensive and normotensive patients. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted over a period of 18 months in outpatient and wards of Medicine department of Katuri Medical College and Hospital, Guntur. 100 individuals between the ages of 18 and 60 and who had been diagnosed with essential hypertension for at least one year are included and those with already diagnosed CAD, Diabetes, anaemia are excluded from the study. The pre-dened semi structured questionairre consisting of patients' characteristics, such as age, gender, duration of hypertension, and other medical disorders.Blood samples were collected and the full blood count was analyzed using Beckman Coulter's Automated Haematology Analyzer. The data was collected entered in Microsoft excel and was analysed by using SPSS software version 22. Results: Of 100 individuals, 79% of the hypertensive patients are below 60 years of age with majority of them being males. The mean RDW among hypertensive patients was 48.11 ± 3.7 whereas in pre hypertensive patients it is 45.6 ± 2.3. 33% of individuals had abnormal RDW. Conclusions: Hypertensive and Pre-hypertensive individuals had a notable increase in RDW in comparison to the individuals with normal blood pressure. Most of them <60 years, males, alcoholic and smokers. RDW, a readily available parameter in a typical complete blood count (CBC), can be utilized as a novel predictor of hypertension.