What's going on when platelets continue to decrease?

Platelets are relatively important substances in the blood. They have very powerful functions and can coagulate quickly when wounds appear on the body to prevent excessive blood loss, thus providing great protection for people's life safety. The number of platelets in the body fluctuates. Some people will experience symptoms of persistent thrombocytopenia for various reasons, which poses a certain threat to the body. Let's take a look at what is going on with persistent thrombocytopenia?

There are many causes of thrombocytopenia.

1. Reduction or death

The causes of thrombocytopenia include hereditary and acquired. Acquired thrombocytopenia is caused by certain factors such as drugs, malignant tumors, infection, ionizing radiation, etc. that damage hematopoietic stem cells or affect their proliferation in the bone marrow. These factors can affect multiple hematopoietic cell systems, often accompanied by varying degrees of anemia, leukopenia, and a significant decrease in bone marrow megakaryocytes.

2. Too much destruction

There are two causes of thrombocytopenia: congenital and acquired. Acquired platelet destruction includes immune and non-immune causes. Common immune causes of excessive platelet destruction include idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and drug-induced thrombocytopenia. Excessive destruction of non-immune thrombocytopenia includes infection, disseminated intravascular coagulation, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, etc.

3. Excessive retention in the spleen

The cause of thrombocytopenia may be excessive retention of platelets in the spleen, which is most common in hypersplenism, which can easily lead to thrombocytopenia.

4. Related to immune destruction

(1) Immune destruction : ① Drug-related antibodies produce corresponding antibodies. ② Certain diseases with abnormal immune responses can cause immune platelet destruction. ③Infection-related thrombocytopenia, common in viral and bacterial infections. ④ Alloimmune thrombocytopenia, seen in post-transfusion purpura and neonatal purpura.

(2) Non-immune destruction : The vascular endothelium is rough, and foreign bodies in the blood vessels cause mechanical destruction of platelets. Such as vasculitis, artificial heart valves, arterial catheterization, extracorporeal circulation, hemodialysis, etc. Disseminated intravascular coagulation, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and hemolytic uremic syndrome are all accompanied by thrombocytopenia, which is related to excessive platelet consumption.