A Survey of 121 patients with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura is one of the most common causes of thrombocy-topenia with varius clinical courses and different responses to its treatment modalities. Therefore, we decided to evaluate the clinical course of this disease in our patients. In this case series study, from March 1998 to March 2004, we evaluated 121 patients. As a first line of treatment, all of those patients received prednisolone (1mg/kg/day) for 6 weeks. Those who didn''t respond or were refractory to prednisolone were candidates for splenectomy, and those who re fused these modalities or didn''t respond to them were treated with Azathioprine. 99 patients (81.8%) were female and 22 (18.2%) were male, aged 11-73 years (mean; 28.6). Two patients had immune hemolytic anemia in addition to thrombocytopenia, 4 had systemic lupus erythematosus, and one was HIV positive. %44.6 of patients fully responded to prednisolone, 42 pa tients (%34.7) underwent splenectomy and %83.3 of them responsed to it.31 splenectomies were per formed in the first three months after diagnosis and 27 (87.1%) of them showed complete response, but 8 (72.7%) of the patients splenectomized after 3 months, had complete response. 14 patients were treated with Azathoprine, 2 of which (14.3%) platelet count normalized. ITP is more common in females than males. Prednisolone is preferred as a non-invasive treatment with suitable response in comparison to other modalition responses to splenectomy, indicat ing that this modality of treatment is useful and effective, especially when performaed in the first 3 months of the diseases.