ABSTRACT

Platelets or thrombocytes are a component of blood whose function (along with the coagulation factors) is to react to bleeding from blood vessel injury by clumping, thereby initiating a blood clot. One major function of platelets is to contribute to hemostasis. Platelet indices vary in the various stages of sickle cell disease. The normal number of platelets in the blood is 150,000 to 400,000 platelets per microliter (mcL). There is still much to find out and understand as relating sickle cell disease and the platelets indices during SCD, so this study aims to investigate platelet function in sickle cell anaemia in crisis and steady state. 90 human subjects were used in the experiment, 30 of which were in crisis state, 30 were in steady state and the other 30 were used as normal haemoglobin control (HbAA). Blood was drawn from all 90 subjects and each blood sample was carefully analyzed using a haematology autoanalyzed and the results were obtained. The results showed that platelet count was significantly increased in crisis state compared to steady state and control. The result also showed that the platelet distribution width significantly decreased during the crisis state, although there was so significant change at the steady state compared with control but the stable state significantly increases compared with the crisis state. Also, for the mean platelet volume, there was a significant decrease during the crisis state compared with control, although, there was no significant changes at the stable state compare with control. Finally, for the plateletcrit, there was a significant decrease during the crisis state compared with control, however, there was no significant changes at the stable state compare with control. It can then be concluded that there is an increase in platelet function in sickle cell disease in crisis state, compared to steady state and control.