Numbers on ITP Patients with Mild / Stable Platelet Counts

Hi. Julia here again. In the pamphlets and clinical summaries online they talk about how "many" ITP patients have mild cases and require no treatment while maintaining stable <50k or mildly effected <100k platelet counts. Does anyone have any percentages on this "many" reference? I'm wondering if this is the majority? Does it matter whether onset is acute or insidious? I haven't been able to find any hard numbers.

Phrases like...."Most adult ITP patients have no symptoms and do not require active treatment"; "Many ITP patients, however, experience mild and stable disease requiring no treatment"; "Some ITP never require treatment"

I've never really seen any statistics about that but even if it were 50/50, you'd have no way to know which way you'd go. Unfortunately, Julia, only time will tell. ITP is manageable and most people lead normal lives with ITP. They just do it while having treatments at times. It is fairly easy for some to manage and a bit harder for others, but everyone manages to keep going on with life.

Mbernardo just posted an article about ITP which included statistics. Here they are:

ITP is defined as a platelet count of less than 100 × 109/L (100,000/μL) with no evidence of leukopenia or anemia. This cutoff point is new: in the past, ITP was defined as a platelet count of less than 150 × 109/L, which is the threshold for a normal platelet count in most laboratories.

The platelet threshold of 100 × 109/L was based on a study by Stasi et al,2 who followed 217 otherwise healthy people who had an incidental finding of mild thrombocytopenia (platelet count 100–150 × 109/L). Within 6 months, the platelet count rose to more than 150 × 109/L in 23, while three had either worsening thrombocytopenia or were diagnosed with other conditions. During longterm follow-up (median 64 months), 109 of the remaining 191 individuals remained stable, 13 developed counts greater than 150 × 109/L, 12 developed ITP, 13 developed an autoimmune disorder, 18 developed other disorders, and 26 were lost to follow-up. The 10-year probability of developing ITP, defined as a platelet count persistently below 100 × 109/L, was only 6.9%, indicating that the chances are small that a person with an isolated finding of mild, stable thrombocytopenia will develop ITP.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410635/

Thanks for posting. And to Mbernard - good read.