What is neutropenia

When it comes to neutropenia, many friends know that it is caused by viral infection in the body. In fact, there is another disease clinically that can also cause a decrease in neutrophils, which is neutropenia. However, many friends do not know about the disease of neutropenia. Therefore, when neutropenia occurs, the treatment is relatively one-sided. So what exactly is neutropenia?

Neutropenia is the absolute neutrophil count in peripheral blood (total white blood cell count × neutrophil percentage), which is less than 1.5×109/L in children under 10 years old, less than 1.8×109/L in children aged 10 to 14 years old, and less than 2.0×109/L in adults. When the granulocyte count is severely reduced, less than 0.5×109/L, it is called agranulocytosis.

Granulocytopenia is a hematological abnormality. If there is no concurrent infection, there is often no clinical manifestation. If there is long-term granulocytopenia, some patients may complain of fatigue and drowsiness. Once there is concurrent infection, corresponding symptoms and signs will appear depending on the site of infection.

1. Leukocytopenia: The peripheral blood leukocyte count is <4×109/L. For children, the normal value is determined based on the age.

2. Granulocytopenia: peripheral blood ANC <1.5×109/L.

3. Agranulocytosis: peripheral blood ANC < 0.5×109/L.

treat

The treatment of neutropenia is mainly etiological treatment, such as discontinuation of suspected drugs, cessation of contact with suspected poisons, and treatment of various primary diseases that cause neutropenia.

The main manifestation of neutropenia is infection, but the risk of infection is negatively correlated with the degree of neutropenia: patients with a neutrophil count of (1.0-1.8)×109/L are less likely to develop infection, those with (0.5-1.0)×109/L are in the middle, and those with <0.5×109/L are most likely to develop infection. In addition, the frequency and severity of infection are related to the cause and course of neutropenia. Generally speaking, patients with neutropenia caused by diseases that reduce neutrophil production, such as secondary to cytotoxic drugs, bone marrow radiotherapy, or intrinsic defects in early hematopoietic progenitor cells, are more likely to develop infection than patients caused by other reasons; patients with neutropenia accompanied by monocytopenia, lymphocytopenia, and hypogammaglobulinemia are more severely infected than patients with isolated neutropenia. Therefore, the treatment of neutropenia should be individualized and tailored to the cause.

Now that we know what neutropenia is, in fact, neutropenia is not scary. What is scary is that its occurrence is accompanied by other viral infections. If this is the case, it will easily lead to various complications in patients, which will not only aggravate the disease, but also make it very difficult to treat. Therefore, everyone must pay attention to neutropenia.