The analysis of the clinical characteristics of patients with liver cirrhosis and immune thrombocytopenia

Objective To summarize and analyze the clinical manifestations of cirrhotic patients with severe thrombocytopenia and its underlying etiology.Methods Eight patients of post-hepatitic cirrhosis with progressive thrombocytopenia were involved in our study and their liver function indexes, prothrombin activity, antiplatelet antibody and bone marrow biopsy results were retrospectively analyzed.Results The decrease of the platelet number was not in proportion to the degree of cirrhosis in the eight patients with cirrhosis developed thrombocytopenia, out of proportion to their liver disease.They were diagnosed as immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) based on positive anti-platelet antibody and exclusion of severe infection, disseminated intravascular coagulation, aplastic anemia, lymphoma, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura et al.The number of platelet obviously increased with the treatment of immunoglobulin and corticosteroids.Conclusion Immune thrombocytopenia must be considered and treated in the post-hepatitic cirrhosis patients when the platelets decreased markedly in a short-term.