Pre-Transplant Red Cell Distribution Width Predicts Short Term Outcome After Heart Transplantation

Red blood cell distribution width to predict mortality in heart transplant recipients: a systematic review

“…There are certain conditions in which RDW tends to increase, i.e., heterozygous thalassemia, hemolytic anemia, hereditary spherocytosis, vitamin B12 or folate deficiency anemia and myelodysplastic syndrome. Two of the included studies in this review excluded patients with anemia [17,18]. However, one of the included studies [19] reported that patients with elevated RDW had significantly lower hemoglobin (11.0±2.0 vs. 12.5±1.8 mg/dL, p=0.001).…”

“…Four retrospective cohort studies were included for qualitative synthesis. We got access to the full text of two of them [16,18], while the other two were available only in conference abstract format [17,19]. The cohorts were performed in Poland (2018 ) [18], Italy (2019) [16], Slovenia (2015) [17] and United States (2017 ) [19].…”

“…We got access to the full text of two of them [16,18], while the other two were available only in conference abstract format [17,19]. The cohorts were performed in Poland (2018 ) [18], Italy (2019) [16], Slovenia (2015) [17] and United States (2017 ) [19]. Characteristics of individual studies are reported in Table 2.…”

“…Two studies assessed 1-year mortality following HT. Poglajen et al [17] calculated 1-year mortality rates in two groups according to a RDW cut-off value of 14.5 (RDW³ 14.5, and RDW< 14.5). They reported greater mortality rates in the higher RDW group than in the normal RDW group.…”

“…As the findings in the search included two conference abstracts, we decided to create a Funnel plot, it showed that even with or without the inclusion of these two studies there is not a publication bias (Supplementary Figure 1). Finally, four articles were considered in this review for qualitative synthesis [16][17][18][19].…”