Relationship between hematological parameters and severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

171 muscular atrophy, which further aggravates re‐ spiratory failure. It can even trigger or increase the severity of comorbidities such as ischemic vas‐ cular diseases, heart failure, osteoporosis, meta‐ bolic syndrome, and depression.2 According to several studies, platelets and their indices may be used as inflammatory markers for cardiovascular, inflammatory, and throm‐ boembolic diseases.3 The parameters related to the platelet size reflect platelet activity and INTRODUCTION Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is related to extreme inflamma‐ tory response of the airways when exposed to harmful gases or particles. COPD is the third lead‐ ing cause of death in the world today.1 Recently, it has been emphasized that COPD is a compo‐ nent of systemic inflammatory syndrome and that the mortality rate due to respiratory failure is higher than that resulting from cardiovascular diseases. Systemic inflammation leads to skeletal ORIGINAL ARTICLE