Thrombocytopenia due to hypersplenism in oncological disease: partial splenic embolization during palliative treatment.

Hypersplenism is excess activity of the spleen, resulting in peripheral pancytopenia that predominates in platelet cell lines. Pancytopenia can be limited by reducing the volume of the functional spleen. However, in patients in very poor general condition, a splenectomy may not be possible, due to the risks of surgery and postoperative infection. Another therapeutic alternative in these patients is to reduce the volume of the spleen by super selective percutaneous splenic embolization. We report three cases of peripheral thrombocytopenia due to hypersplenism with a platelet count between 60,000 and 80,000/mm(3), which made it impossible to continue or start a chemotherapy protocol in these patients. For these patients, super selective partial embolization of the splenic parenchyma, with uncharged microspheres (250 microns) quickly resulted in a platelet count above 150,000/mm(3) so that chemotherapy could be continued or initiated.