Etiological profile of pancytopenia in children: A hospital based study

Objective: to determine the etiological profile of pancytopenia in children admitted in a paediatric department of a tertiary care hospital.methodology: this is a cross-sectional study conducted at department of paediatrics dow university of health sciences and civil hospital karachi from january 2009 to december 2009. it included all the patients between 1 -12 years of age, presenting with complaints of pallor, fever and bleeding manifestations and their complete blood picture showed decrease in 2 or 3 blood cells lines i.e hemoglobin less than 10g/dl, absolute neutrophil count less than 1.5x103/l and platelet count less than 150x109/l. relevant investigations such as complete blood count, peripheral smear, reticulocyte count and bone marrow examination were done to confirm the diagnosis. the data was analyzed through spss version 15.0.results: a total of fifty patients were enrolled. there were 48% males and 52% females. male to female ratio was 0.9:1. mean age of patients was 7 + 3.35 years with range from 1 to 12 years. infectious etiology was found in 50% cases followed by aplastic anemia 22%, malignancies 10% and hypersplenism 8%. common infections found were malaria 22%, enteric fever 12% and megaloblastic anemia secondary to vitamin b12 deficiency was observed in 4% patients. conclusion: the most frequent etiology of pancytopenia in children was infections followed by aplastic anemia, malignancy and hypersplenism. malaria and enteric fever were the two most commonly observed infections causing pancytopenia in children