Introduction
The coronavirus disease that emerged at the end of 2019 (COVID-19)
rapidly became a global public health problem. COVID-19 is a contagious
disease causing a high prevalence of pneumonia in infected individuals
(1, 2). Reports published to date have shown that children are rarely
affected by COVID-19 (3-6). However, it has been reported that children
and young adults with an underlying disorder, such as impaired pumonary
function or immunosuppression could be at a higher risk of severe
COVID-19 (7, 8). Furthermore, in reports from several countries, it has
been stated that healthy children who have tested positive for COVID-19
are mild, or more often asymptomatic carriers, and thus play a major
role in the spread of the disease (9, 10).
In additition to functions in hemostasis, thrombocytes play a critical
role in the inflammatory response, and numbers can vary in parallel with
the severity of the infection (11, 12). In addition to changes in
thrombocyte count during infections, thrombocyte size may also change.
Mean platelet volume shows the mean size of thrombocytes and thrombocyte
activation. Mean platelet volume levels show variation according to the
severity of inflammation. Changes in MPV levels have been defined as a
diagnostic and prognostic predictor in diseases such as sepsis,
infective endocarditis, pneumonia, brucellosis, cellulitis, and acute
pyelonephritis (13-18).
The hypothesis of this study was that as COVID-19 causes inflammation,
it could affect thrombocyte indexes. The aim of the study was to
evaluate the correlation between COVID-19 and thrombocyte indexes.