Splenectomy in the Elderly

‘Early’ Splenectomy and Survival in Agnogenic Myeloid Metaplasia

“…Ward and Block [1] restricted the indications for surgery to life-threatening hemolysis or thrombopenia while Crosby et al [2] have advocated splenectomy for every patient with AMM as soon as the diagnosis is estab lished. The lack of agreement regarding the surgical treatment of AMM ist partly due to the relative rarity of this disease and to its protracted course.…”

Elective splenectomy in the elderly - perioperative and long-term course

“…Using computerised (Medline) and manual (English language) literature searches, we found only three previous reports about splenectomy in the elderly [9,10,11]. The design differed and none included any long-term follow-up.…”

“…The authors concluded that their data did not demonstrate any increased risk with regard to splenectomy in the elderly. The second paper, by Crosby et al, from 1966, describes 20 case reports of patients aged 60-84 years (mean 65 years), between 1954 and 1964 [10]. There were no intraoperative deaths, but four patients died during the postoperative period, of which two seemed to be procedure related.…”

“…Aged patients with haematological disorders requiring splenectomy are in a special group, in which the underlying disease by itself is often supposed to be associated with a higher surgical morbidity. We have only found three previous reports, the latest appearing in 1977, dealing with this patient category [9,10,11]. The designs among these papers differs, and none of them assesses the long-term outcome.…”

Early Splenectomy in Lymphoproliferative Disorders

“…However Total_13 (10)10 (6)7(2) 2(1) 5(4) Table 1 footnote. (3) 2 (2) 2 (2) 3 (3) 2 (1) 12 (12) 6-12 mo 1 (1) 6(1) 1 1 (1) 3(3)12 (6) 1-2 yr 3 (2) ...…”