Comparison of Clinical Features and Treatment Outcomes of Young and Older Adult Patients with Primary İmmune Thrombocytopenia

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to investigate the discrepancies regarding the clinical characteristics and the treatment outcomes between immune thrombocytopenic purpura patients ≤ 60 y and > 60 y, which is the cut-off age for the definition of old age by the WHO. We retrospectively analyzed the data of 67 immune thrombocytopenic purpura patients diagnosed and treated in the Hematology clinic between December 2014 and February 2019. The median age of the patients was 44 years (range, 17-86); 48 (71.6%) patients were female and 19 (28.4%) were male. There were 50 (74.6%) patients aged ≤ 60 y and 17 (25.4%) patients > 60 y. When two groups were compared with respect to treatment features, they were similar in responding to the therapies, the loss of response to therapies and in duration of response to the therapies (p>0.05). When the cutoff point for age was 50 and 65 years again the groups were similar in terms of disease and treatment characteristics (p>0.05). Despite the clinical complexicity and heterogeneity of older adults, the treatment outcomes of olderimmune thrombocytopenic purpura patients seem to be similar to the young ones.