Clinical and etiological profile of thrombocytopenia in adults: A tertiary-care hospital-based cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: The etiologies of thrombocytopenia are diverse. Various studies on thrombocytopenia are done in the past have related to specific etiologies. Objectives: This study attempts to determine the common etiologies of thrombocytopenia in adult patients admitted to Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. Patients with thrombocytopenia more than 18 years of age at admission between 1 October and 31 October 2013 were followed up during their stay in hospital, diagnosis were made, and bleeding manifestations and requirement of platelet transfusion were recorded. Results: From the 412 patients studied, dengue was diagnosed in 28.6% of patients followed by malaria in 22.8%, chronic liver disease in 15.2%, hypersplenism in 12.3%, septicemia in 6.3%, gestational thrombocytopenia and disseminated intravascular coagulation in 5.5%, immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) in 3.1%, megaloblastic anemia in 1.9%, human immunodeficiency virus in 1.4%, drug-induced thrombocytopenia in 1.2%, leukemia in 0.7%, and aplastic anemia in 0.48%. Bleeding secondary to thrombocytopenia was seen in 46 (11.2%) patients; of them, 28 were diagnosed with dengue fever, 4 with chronic liver disease, 3 with sepsis, 2 with hematological malignancies, and 9 with ITP. The common bleeding manifestations were gum bleed, purpura, petechial rash, and bruising. All the cases with platelet count o5,000/mL had bleeding manifestations secondary to thrombocytopenia. From the patients studied, 79.3% had fever associated with thrombocytopenia. Platelet transfusion was given to 87 patients: of these, 46 (52.8%) were transfused because of bleeding and 41 (47.1%) were given prophylactic transfusion. Conclusion: Dengue fever was the most common cause of thrombocytopenia and the most common etiology found in patients who had bleeding secondary to thrombocytopenia with gum bleed as a common manifestation. There was no definitive trigger value of platelet for platelet transfusion, and transfusion because of bleeding and prophylactic transfusion were given in almost similar proportions of patients.

Study of Clinical Profile of Acute Febrile illness with Thrombocytopenia

“…Male were commonly suffering from fever, this may be due to their easy exposure to mosquito because of their outdoor activities. Our finding of occurrence of fever with thrombocytopenia more in male than female is similar to study done by Bhalara SK Shah et al [4] in 2015. In our study…”

A study of clinical and laboratory profile of febrile children presenting with thrombocytopenia

“…9 Another study done by Bhalara, showed dengue (60.8%) as the main aetiology. 10 In present study, viral infections were the commonest cause due to the higher prevalence of these infections during the rainy season. This difference could have been due to seasonal and regional variation.…”

Clinical epidemiology of paediatric febrile and afebrile in-patients and their association with thrombocytopenia

“…In another study by Bhalra, dengue was found as the main aetiology (60.8%). 15 In this study dengue was found only in (3.35%) cases in pyrexia group.…”