Prognostic Significance of Red Blood Cell Distribution Width (RDW) in Critically Ill Pediatric Patients at Sohag University Hospital

Red blood cell (RBC) distribution width (RDW), calculated by dividing the standard deviation of RBC volume by the mean corpuscular volume and multiplied by 100, is routinely reported as part of the complete blood count (CBC) using automated flow cytometry. RDW has been traditionally used as additional information in the differential diagnosis of the cause of anemia.

RDW has been recently reported as a strong prognostic factor in several diseases of various organ systems, including the cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, neurologic, and gastrointestinal systems.It also showed significant associations with ventilator-free days, postoperative outcome, intensive care unit (ICU) discharge outcome, out-of-hospital outcome, and all-cause mortality in critically ill patients. However, most studies were conducted in adult patients. Only a few studies have investigated RDW in children, especially in the critically ill pediatric population.