title: Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Mean Platelet Volume: A Systemic Review and Meta-analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is linked to obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. Increased mean platelet volume (MPV), a marker of platelet activity, is associated with acute myocardial infarction, stroke, thrombosis, and increased mortality after myocardial infarction. The purpose of this study was to perform a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between NAFLD and MPV.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic search of MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, and CINAHL databases from 1950 to May 2014, complemented with manual review of references of published articles for studies comparing MPV in patients with and without NAFLD was done. Results were pooled using both fixed and random effects model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our analysis from pooling of data from 8 observational studies including 1428 subjects (NAFLD=842 and non-NAFLD=586) showed that MPV was significantly higher in patients with NAFLD than those without. The standardized mean difference in MPV between NAFLD and controls was 0.457 (95% confidence interval: 0.348-0.565, P<0.001) using fixed and 0.612 (95% confidence interval: 0.286-0.938, P<0.001) using random effects model.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study suggests that MPV is significantly higher in patients with NAFLD, indicating the presence of increased platelet activity in such patients. Future research is needed to investigate whether this increased MPV is associated with increased cardiovascular disease in patients with NAFLD.
authors.affiliation: *Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, New York City, NY †Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School /Saint Peters University Hospital Program, New Brunswick, NJ.
authors.forename: Shivank A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Madan
authors.forename: Febin
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: John
authors.forename: Capecomorin S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Pitchumoni
mesh_terms: D001792:Blood Platelets / Q000378:metabolism*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D063847:Mean Platelet Volume; D024821:Metabolic Syndrome / Q000097:blood; D065626:Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease / Q000097:blood*; D009765:Obesity / Q000097:blood