Ashida M. Krishnan1 , Deepthi Raj M.L.2 , Priya V.S.3 , Arya R.S4
BACKGROUND Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) is one of the most commonly encountered disease in paediatric practice. Thorough clinical and morphological study of peripheral blood and bone marrow is required for confirming ITP. Clinicomorphological aspects of paediatric ITP is a less studied topic especially in developing countries like India. The objective was to study the clinical and morphological profile of paediatric cases of ITP. METHODS This is a 5-year record based retrospective study conducted in a paediatric tertiary health care centre in Kerala, South India. Data of all paediatric cases diagnosed as ITP including clinical presentation, clinical findings, blood counts, peripheral blood morphology, bone marrow morphology, and treatment response was collected and entered in SPSS software version 16.0 and analysed. For assessing correlation, chi-square test was used. RESULTS The age of children ranged from 3 months to 15 years. H/o viral fever was noted in 53 % cases. Cases which had moderate and severe thrombocytopenia were 74 % and 21 % respectively. Isolated thrombocytopenia was the most common peripheral blood picture observed with few cases showing coexisting eosinophilia and anaemia. All cases showed megakaryocyte proliferation in marrow with 9 % cases showing coexisting iron deficiency anaemia. Majority of cases showed rapid response to steroid / IVIG therapy and the response had no correlation with grade of thrombocytopenia (p value < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Paediatric cases of ITP usually present following viral infections or vaccination, with worrisome bleeding episodes, petechiae, ecchymosis or purpura.
