American Society of Hematology - report 2

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting ended, but processing all the information will continue for months. I didn't count the exact number of abstracts on ITP, but can tell you that there were at least 30 plus 2 special sessions on Friday and an education session on Saturday and that doesn't count the related sessions about platelets or other thrombocytopenias.

Here is some information I thought would be interesting. You can find a listing of all the ASH abstracts at www.hematology.org . The education booklet will be available on the ASH site soon. We will devote the entire December e-news to ASH information as well as publish articles in the Winter edition of The Platelet News.

News on Anti- In the past a very small percentage of patients developed severe depeletion of their red blood cells and other complications, including death, after receiving Win Rho, an anti-D product. Cangene, the company that makes and sells Win Rho, analyzed the medical records of the people who experienced adverse events after receiving their product and found several conditions that could lead to more severe complications. These are: active viral infections, hematological malignancies, other autoimmune or inflammatory diseases, and those over 65 with other health problems.

Microparticles and clots in people with ITP: Dr. Ahn's group in Miami measured and tested the clotting potential of microparticles in the blood of people with ITP. His group found that the microparticles in the blood of people with ITP were more prone to form blood clots than the microparticles in the control population. This was also true of those who had a splenectomy and were in remission. In some ways the clotting potential of the microparticles may be helpful in preventing bleeding, but in other ways this condition may make people with ITP more prone to heart attacks, stokes, and clots in their veins than might be expected.

Interesting, Joan (about the clots). I just posted about that the other day. Are there any specific publications about that?

In another abstract (#70 “Incidence of Thromboembolic Events Across Eltrombopag Clinical Trials In Chronic Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP)”, researchers looked at the people who had clots on the eltrombopag study. They were not associated with higher counts but were associated with other health problems. Most were deep vein thrombosis. Clots have been associated with general inflammation and since ITP is an inflammatory disease that makes sense, but I haven't seen published research on that angle.