Pancytopenia of Unknown Cause in Adult Patients Admitted to a Tertiary Hospital in Ethiopia Case series

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Over the past few years, we have witnessed adramatic increase in the number of patients presenting with severepancytopenia to Jimma University Hospital. We now present socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of adult patients admittedwith pancytopenia of unknown cause to Jimma University Hospitalduring the period of March 2015 to June 2016. Complete blood countand other diagnostic tests were done for all patients to uncoverunderlying causes.RESULT: Out of 65 cases admitted with pancytopenia during thespecified period, 40 were excluded for various reasons. The rest 25patients were included in this review. The mean age was 32.1 years(SD=14.9); 14 were younger than 30 years of age. The meanhemoglobin level, white cell count and platelet count were 48.6 g/L(SD=1.9), 1,918 /μL (SD=879.8) and 36,200 /μL (SD=26,131)respectively. The major presenting symptoms were generalizedmalaise and fever. No geographic or seasonal clustering of the caseswas seen.CONCLUSION: The number of cases with pancytopenia ofunidentified cause seen at the hospital over the specified period isalarmingly high and deserves great attention. The hematologicalteration in most of the patients was found to be severe with poorclinical outcome. This calls for large scale community basedinvestigation to uncover the root cause of the problem.