What is Thrombocytopenia?

Thrombocytopenia is a blood disorder where the person is at risk of excessive bleeding because of a low number of platelets in the blood. Blood clotting will not occur if there isn’t sufficient amount of platelets in the blood, and clotting is needed for wounds to stop bleeding and allowing the healing and skin regeneration process to begin. When the platelet count is low blood cells are unable to stick together, and this is integral to the clotting process. 

The threshold for a normal platelet count is between 150k to 450k of them in one milliliter of blood. Any number below that and the person will be deemed to have thrombocytopenia. 

What Causes Thrombocytopenia?

Most of the time thrombocytopenia is caused by related medical conditions or medication use. In rarer instances it may be familial, meaning that a has a person is predisposed to having low platelet counts because they’ve genetically inherited it from a parent. Thrombocytopenia may result from medical conditions like leukemia and other cancers, anemias, viral infections like HIV or Hepatitis C, or alcoholism. Low platelet counts may also be caused by toxin exposures to pesticides or arsenic. 

Other possible causes are autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, and pregnancy for women. Pulmonary hypertension is also known to promote the low platelet counts of thrombocytopenia. 

Medications may also be causing it. Ones like Heparin, Alemtuzumab, Nivolumab, Fludarabine, Temozolomide, Pembrolizumab, Ibrutinib, Venetoclax, Losartan, and Doxycycline. 

Thrombocytopenia Symptoms

The most common of thrombocytopenia symptoms are excessive wound bleeding, pronounced skin bruising and blotching, red and flat spots on the skin, and body fatigue. An enlarged spleen may also occur because of thrombocytopenia. 

Thrombocytopenia Treatment

Treatment is often not needed for people with mild thrombocytopenia. If blood clotting is seriously compromised it is more likely that platelet-inducing medications like Promacta or Cyklokapron will be prescribed for thrombocytopenia treatment. Other possibilities may be blood or platelet transfusions, or a plasma exchange procedure. 

Spleen removal surgery may become necessary for severe thrombocytopenia and the associated health risks of internal hemorrhaging, stroke, or heart attack.