Zeitschrift für Herz- und Lungenrehabilitation

Abstrakt

Red Blood Cell Distribution Width as an Old and New Marker in Various Vascular Diseases

Nishiyama Y *,Ikeda H

Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) is the quantitative measure of anisocytosis showing the variability in size of the circulating erythrocytes. Generally, higher RDW reflects increased red blood cell destruction such as hemolytic disorders and nutritional deficiency including iron, vitamin B12 and folate deficiency. Recently, several studies showed a strong independent association between higher RDW and the poor prognosis in various vascular diseases such as heart, brain and kidney. This review will refer the underlying mechanisms of the beneficial prognostic marker of RDW in those diseases.