Usefulness of Complete Blood Count (CBC) to Assess Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases in Clinical Settings: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Complete blood count (CBC) is one of the most common blood tests requested by clinicians and evaluates the total numbers and characteristics of cell components in the blood. Recently, many investigations have suggested that the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD), arteriosclerosis, type 2 diabetes (T2DM), and metabolic syndrome can be predicted using CBC components. This review introduces that white blood cell (WBC), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), hemoglobin (Hb), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), red cell distribution width (RDW), platelet count, mean platelet volume (MPV), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) are useful markers to predict CVD and metabolic diseases. Furthermore, we would like to support various uses of CBC by organizing pathophysiology that can explain the relationship between CBC components and diseases.