Symptoms of ITP
Having ITP means your child has fewer platelets than normal. Having fewer platelets means your child may bleed more easily. This causes the symptoms of ITP.
- Purpura - purple bruises on the skin due to bleeding from small blood vessels.
- Petechiae - red pinpoints in the skin due to blood leaking from small blood vessels. The pinpoints may look like a rash.
- Bleeding in the mucus membranes - typically affecting the lining of the nose or mouth. You may actually see blood, such as from a nosebleed or from the gums after dental work, or you may see purpura.
- Blood in the urine or stool
ITP Diagnosis
Several health problems can cause low platelets levels. So your child's doctor needs to learn your child's platelet level and get a full picture of the child's health to determine whether it's ITP.
The doctor will ask about your child's symptoms, other illnesses that may affect platelets and medicines that may affect them, too. The doctor will also examine your child looking for signs of bleeding or other health problems.
Blood tests will provide important clues about your child's condition. Here are some of the things the doctor may look for in your child's blood:
- The level of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. The test is called a complete blood count, or CBC.
- The appearance of the platelets and other blood cells as seen on a slide under a microscope. This is called a blood smear.
Platelets are fragments of larger cell called megakaryocytes. To understand more about what's happening with your child's platelets, the doctor may need to check whether these larger cells look normal. To view these cells, the doctor will do a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy. Here at Seattle Children's, all children receive medicines to make them sleepy and feel less pain for the procedure. There are two main parts to this procedure:
- Using a syringe to remove a sample of liquid bone marrow (aspiration) and very small piece of bone (biopsy)
- Checking these samples under a microscope to look for anything that's not normal