Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of Mean Platelet Volume for Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis (SBP) in patients with Hepatitis C related Decompensated Liver Cirrhosis taking Ascitic Fluid Analysis as the gold standard.

Study Setting: The study was conducted at Department of Gastroenterology, Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore.

Duration of Study: August 29, 2018 to March 1, 2019

Study Design: Cross-Sectional Study

Subjects & Methods: Total 180 patients were counseled. Four ml of venous blood samples were taken from all patients using aseptic technique. CBC was done by the auto analyser and MPV was noted. Ultrasound guided 20ml of ascitic fluid was aspirated using aseptic technique. SBP on ascitic fluid analysis and MPV was diagnosed as per operational definition. All the collected data were entered and analysed into SPSS v25.0. A 2x2 table was generated to calculate sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy. Data will be stratified for age, gender and duration of liver cirrhosis. Post-stratification, Chi-Square test was applied taking p-value of ≤0.05 as statistically significant.

Results: In this study, 180 patients who have Hepatitis C related Decompensated Liver Cirrhosis with intraperitoneal fluid on ultrasound were enrolled. Among these patients, 107(59.4%) were males, while 73(40.6%) were females. Age range in this study was from 20 years to 65 years with mean age of 42.1±12.9 years. Sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy of MPV was 75.1%, 55.8%, 84.4%, 41.3% and 70.5% respectively.

Conclusion: Mean Platelet Volume can be used for the screening and detection of Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis (SBP) in patients with Hepatitis C related Decompensated Liver Cirrhosis.

Keywords: Ascitic Fluid Analysis, Mean Platelet Volume, Liver Cirrhosis.