RDW can be a useful additional marker in diagnosing Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis

Anaemia is a common complication in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD-Crohn's disease [CD], ulcerative colitis [UC]) and is mainly caused by iron malabsorption and intestinal bleeding. Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) provides a quantitative measure of the size variability within the red blood cell population and may be increased even before iron deficiency becomes obvious. Recent data suggest that RDW could be a reliable marker in differentiating between CD and UC. The aim of our study was to retrospectively evaluate whether RDW can help to differentiate the two forms of IBD in daily clinica…