Deciphering cytopenias in internal medicine: a single-center observational study.
Intern Emerg Med
; 19(3): 661-668, 2024 Apr.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38270774
ABSTRACT
Cytopenia is a common finding in patients admitted to internal medicine wards and the clinical workup may be long and time-consuming. In this single-center observational study, we analyzed a series of 151 inpatients who received hematologist referral due to cytopenia observed during hospital admission. Patients were mainly elderly (median 71 years, 15-96) and 87% had at least one comorbidity. Anemia was the most common cytopenia (91%), followed by thrombocytopenia (51%), and neutropenia (22%); 73 (48%) patients had a bicytopenia and 5 (3%) pancytopenia. Cytopenias were mainly severe, 66% of cases required RBC transfusions, and 21% platelet pools. During a median hospital stay of 15 days (1-166), 53 subjects (35%) received a hematologic discharge diagnosis, whilst the two-thirds had secondary cytopenia mainly due to associated comorbidities. Only about 34% of 2,728 diagnostic tests performed (including laboratory, imaging, and histology) clearly informed the discharge diagnosis in this heterogenous setting. Specifically, bone-marrow evaluation indicated in 46 (30%) patients, was diagnostic in 32 (69.6%). Eleven percent of patients died due to progression of the oncohematologic disease (29%), sepsis (24%), and solid tumor progression (24%). In conclusion, cytopenias in the internal medicine setting are mainly severe, more frequently secondary to associated comorbidities (2/3 of patients) and deserve proper workup before second/third-level tests (immune-hematological assays and CT scan or PET and bone-marrow evaluation, respectively).
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Pancitopenia
/
Trombocitopenia
/
Medicina Interna
Tipo de estudio:
Observational_studies
Límite:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Aged
/
Aged80
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Idioma:
En
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article