[Therapy refractory idiopathic thrombocytopenia. Contraindication for dental surgery interventions]

Hemorrhagic diathesis represents a high risk for oral surgery. In clinical practice various kinds of diathetic diseases are seen that are of plasmatic, vascular, thrombocytic and hypertensive origin. Usually these patients will be primarily referred to the hospital as high-risk cases. Therefore, a broad spectrum of diagnostic and therapeutic interdisciplinary methods are available, so that as a rule it is possible to obtain a clear picture of the severity of the bleeding tendency. We represent a case of a 58-year-old woman who had decayed teeth with chronic periodontal and periapical lesions, who could not be treated by oral surgery because of refractory idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) with 1000 platelets/microliters. The patient's history showed that various hematologic concepts had been tried, including splenectomy, but all had failed entirely. After therapy with steroids, immunosuppressive and cytostatic agents, and even after administering immunoglobulins and substitution with platelets, the count did not increase; thus, an absolute contraindication for all kinds of surgery was declared. This rare example indicates that unmanagable bleeding diseases still exist that should be known by dentists and oral surgeons to prevent making deleterious therapeutic decisions.