Study of clinical and aetiological profile of 100 patients of pancytopenia at a tertiary care centre in India

Pancytopenia is not a disease but an important clinico-haematological entity encountered in our day-to-day clinical practice with findings that may result from a number of disease processes. A total of 100 patients of pancytopenia admitted in medicine wards of Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad, Gujuarat, India, were studied. The most common cause of pancytopenia was megaloblastic anaemia (45%) followed by infections (20%) and hypersplenism (15%). As compared with other causes, megaloblastic anaemia was statistically significant cause (P < 0.01) of pancytopenia, in our study. The most common clinical presentation of patients with megaloblastic anaemia was lethargy (100%) and pallor (100%). In patients with megaloblastic anaemia, mean haemoglobin (Hb) was 5.6 ± 1.7 g/dl, mean white blood corpuscle (WBC) count was 2735 ± 4152 and mean platelet count was 52 250 ± 24 213. Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) was 101.2 ± 11 in patients of megaloblastic anaemia. Morphology of RBC was marocytic in 95% of patients with megaloblastic anaemia, whereas hypersegmented neutrophils and macrovalocytes were seen in 60-65% patients of megaloblastic anaemia.