ITP Treatment Guidelines

What is ITP?
Immune thrombocytopenia also named as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura basically is a kind of rare bleeding disorder in which the body’s immune system kills platelets in the blood. Platelets work as an initial plug in order to prevent blood leakage prior to the rest of the blood clotting process starts.
A normal platelet count is between 100 and 400, but with idiopathic thrombocytopenic the platelet count may go below 5.

What are the symptoms of chronic ITP?
The chronic immune thrombocytopenia symptoms may vary and commonly include black mouth blisters, bruising, nose bleeds, fatigue, petechiae (rash of tiny spots), and heavy periods in women. Rarely, reported symptoms may include internal bleeding.

What causes chronic immune thrombocytopenia?
Immune thrombocytopenia usually arises when the immune system mistakenly starts attacking and destroying platelets, which are cell fragments that help blood clot. In adults, it may be triggered due to infection with HIV, hepatitis or H. pylori.

Can chronic ITP be cured?
Every disease has a cure. For ITP, most of the patients find their platelet count improves after having appropriate treatment. What proves harder for many patients with ITP is finding the appropriate treatment that acts for them without any unwanted adverse reactions. In some cases, patients report that changing their diet/lifestyle helps them feel a lot better.

How do you diagnose ITP?
ITP can be diagnosed by identifying a reduced platelet count on a complete blood count. Although, since the diagnosis of ITP depends on the exclusion of the other possible causes of reduced platelet count, additional investigations (such as a bone marrow biopsy) may be required in a few cases.

Immune thrombocytopenia treatment guidelines: The current guidelines recommend treatment only in cases of significant bleeding. Sometimes the treatment recommendations may differ for adult and pediatric patients with ITP.
There is a widely used medication named Eltrombopag (Revolade), which is a small molecule agonist of the c-mpl (TpoR) receptor and that has been developed for the certain complications that lead to the thrombocytopenia (abnormally low platelet counts).

Side Effects: The revolade tablet uses may be responsible for causing some side effects, which may include:

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Headache
• Muscle pain
• Back pain
• Upset stomach
• Swelling in the hands or feet

Price: The eltrombopag price may vary from generic version drugs to innovator drugs. Price for a strip of 7 tablets of revolade 50mg tablet is around 14434 INR.

Medications to treat ITP: The list of FDA approved medications for ITP is listed as follows:

• Promacta (eltrombopag 50 mg)
• Prednisone
• Nplate (romiplostim)
• Tavalisse (fostamatinib)
• Privigen (Immune globulin)
• WinRho SDF