Background: Osteomyelitis is a chronic recurrent disease of the bone that can be seen in all age groups. The most important factor accepted in the treatment of chronic osteomyelitis is total excision of dead tissues. Treatment response is followed by clinical recovery and reductions in inflammatory markers such as, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP) and white blood cell count (WBC). In this study, we compared pre-operative ESR, CRP, WBC, mean platelet volume (MPV), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), hemoglobin, hematocrit, and neutrophil and lymphocyte counts of patients with chronic osteomyelitis with those in post-treatment period. Methods: In this retrospective study, pre- and post-treatment blood parameters of 71 (69% [n=49] male), 31% [n=22] female) patients with pathologic diagnosis of chronic osteomyelitis who were operated due to osteomyelitis in our orthopedics service between 2010 and 2017 were investigated. Numerical data were compared with Student's t test and p values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Mean age of the patients recruited to the study was 31.1 ± 17.0 (3-80) years, and mean follow-up period duration was 9.3 ± 11.7 (1-46) months. There was no statistically significant difference between pre-op and post-treatment values of hematocrit, lymphocyte count and NLR (p <0.05). While, post-treatment ESR, CRP, WBC, neutrophil count, hemoglobin and MPV were significantly different compared to pre-op values (p<0.05 for all). Conclusion: These results suggest that MPV may be a useful and readily available inflammatory marker for follow-up the treatment response in patients with chronic osteomyelitis.
