Relations between the Haematological Hypersplenism and Splenomegaly in Patients with Hepatic Cirrhosis

Abstract

Even though the relationship between hypersplenism and hepatic cirrhosis has been long known, the complete explanation of its mechanisms is not completely understood. The numerous clinical observations have shaped the notion of hematological hypersplenism and have related it to portal hypertension and increased volume of the spleen Attempts to infer the intensity of hypersplenism based on various clinical or paraclinical criteria have had controversial results. Trying to find correlations between any possible predictive factors of hypersplenism in cirrhotic patients this study shows that splenomegaly is not a predictive factor for hypersplenism and that the most predictive factor for thrombocytopenia was the viral plus alcoholic etiology of cirrhosis.