Causes and Clinical features of patients with Hypersplenism: a case study conducted in Ibn Sina and Soba Teaching Hospitals, Khartoum, Sudan.

Abstract

Objective: The main objectives of this paper are to identify the main causes of hypersplenism in Sudan and also to see how far the splenic size correlates with degree of thrombocytopenia.

Methods: it is "a descriptive hospital- based study" in which a total of 100 patients meeting the diagnosis of hypersplenism were studied for a period of 12 months (from January 2003 up to January 2004).Most of these patients were admitted to Khartoum, Soba and Ibn Sina Teaching Hospitals. Patients above 15 years of age were included in the study. The data was collected through a questionnaire containing a detailed medical history, thorough physical examination and detailed laboratory investigations. The Data was analyzed using SPSS program, simple tabulations and frequency distributions were conducted.

Results: 100 patients were included in the study, 72% of them were males and 28%were females. 50% patients were due to schistosomal portal hypertension, 6% of them had liver cirrhosis beside periportal fibrosis (PPF), visceral leishmaniasis detected in 30% of patients, tropical splenomegaly syndrome (TSS) in 9%, liver cirrhosis in 6%, and in 5% no cause could be found. The majority of patients had gross splenomegaly. The main presenting symptoms were fever, symptoms of anemia, bleeding tendency and loss of weight.

Conclusion: The common causes of hypersplenism in our study are potentially preventable conditions. There was no correlation between splenic size and severity of thrombocytopenia.

Keywords: Hypersplenism, Schistosomal portal hypertension, Visceral Lesishmaniasis