Abstract
The activation of the platelets plays a key role in the formation of thrombosis. The variables such as mean platelet volume, platelet factor 4 and β-thromboglobulin have been used in the demonstration of the platelet activation. However, when the literature was reviewed, there was not found any study investigating the level of β-thromboglobulin in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Our goal is to evaluate the β-thromboglobulin levels together with mean platelet volume in patients with arthritis. This study is a clinical study which has a control group that has been designed prospectively, and in this study, Rheumatology Outpatient Clinic follow-up patients with rheumatoid arthritis and healthy control group were studied. All patients and healthy volunteers were examined β-thromboglobulin and mean platelet volume. Twenty-two patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 21 healthy volunteers participated in the study. β-Thromboglobulin mean was found as 98.00 ± 60.49 ng/mL in rheumatoid arthritis group and it was 62.38 ± 30.41 ng/mL in healthy control group. The differences between these groups were significant in terms of the levels of β-thromboglobulin (p = 0.02). We found significant differences between the groups in terms of mean platelet volume (p = 0.049). In this study, the level of β-thromboglobulin was found significantly higher in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, which is a chronic inflammatory disease. This result could be an indicator, such as platelet activation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, or it may be a helper marker in the follow-up and treatment of developing cardiovascular risk.
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Karatoprak, C., Uyar, S., Abanonu, G.B. et al. The levels of β-thromboglobulin in female rheumatoid arthritis patients as activation criteria. Rheumatol Int 33, 1229–1232 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-012-2511-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-012-2511-4