Investigating the Relationship Between Red Blood Cell Distribution Width and Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer and Colonic Polyps

Background: colorectal cancer is a common cancer and has a high rate of mortality and morbidity. this can be reduced by screening tests. some of the studies have recently referred to red cell distribution width (rdw) as a marker for early detection of various cancers. the aim of this study was to investigate the rdw and early detection of colorectal cancer and polyp. methods:a total of 90 patients were divided into three groups. one group included patients with colon cancer, another group with colon polyps, and the third group with normal colonoscopy as a control group. blood samples were taken from patients and mean corpuscular volume (mcv), hemoglobin (hb), platelet (plt), red blood cell distribution width (rdw), ferritin, serum iron, and total iron-binding capacity (tibc) values were recorded. transferrin saturation (tsat) was also calculated. statistical analysis was performed to remove the anemia effect of patients who had tsat less than 20%, which was compared to patients who had tsat over 20%. for the relationship between rdw and colon cancer, a receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve was used. results: the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (auc) of the rdw for predicting colon cancer was 0.698, with cut off >14 which had 80% sensitivity and 60% specificity. conclusions: rdw can be considered as a parameter for predicting colorectal cancer.