The out- patient with a newly diagnosed thrombocytopenia

Summary

Most cases of thrombocytopenia are discovered incidentally in patients with various health problems, which have no bleeding symptoms. Most of them are inconsequential; however, sometimes thrombocytopenia is the first symptom of a serious or life- threatening disease. After the exclusion of pseudo thrombocytopenia, the attention should be focused on the most serious diagnoses, especially on disseminated intravascular coagulation, thrombotic microangiopathy, acute leukemias or heparin induced thrombocytopenia. These disorders should be diagnosed as soon as possible, because the early start of treatment is crucial to patient’s survival. After these diseases are excluded, the process of differential diagnosis continues, including thorough assessment of history, physical examination and numerous laboratory tests, because a large number of disorders accompanied by thrombocytopenia exist.

Key words:
thrombocytopenia –  pseudo thrombocytopenia –  differential diagnosis