PSEUDOTHROMBOCYTOPENIA - A RARE PHENOMENON

Thrombocytopenia is a serious situation that causes anxiety in doctors and patients due to its relationship with serious hemorrhagic manifes tations. Pseudothrombocytopenia, however, is a situation without clini cal interest because it is an in vitro decrease in platelet count. Pse udothrombocytopenia is related to the ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDT A)-dependent exposure of antigenic determinants of platelet membrane g lycoproteins gpIIb-IIIa and the subsequent reaction of common antibodi es with these receptors. To our knowledge, a similar situation in Gree ce has not been reported. The main characteristic of pseudothrombocyto penia due to EDTA is that the fall in platelet count is time-dependent and it disappears after the use of anticoagulant other than EDTA (e.g ., citrate sodium or heparin). We present seven cases of pseudothrombo cytopenia revealed when we used automatic hematologic analyzers and ED TA as an anticoagulant. After the use of another anticoagulant (e.g., citrate sodium) the platelet count in the same hematologic analyzer wa s normal.