Goals defining therapy for primary immune thrombocytopenia in adults

: Discordances existing between the two most influential guidelines on the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia, the 2010 International Consensus Report and the 2011 America Society of Hematology guideline, continue to be reflected by the heterogeneity of clinical practice of the physicians who treat this disease. Aimed at overcoming these discordances, we hypothesized that they could be ascribed to nonshared treatment goals. We classify the indications for and goals of the various possible treatments available for adults with primary immune thrombocytopenia according to the line of treatment and the phase of disease. The resulting classification is useful for recognizing the appropriateness of a chosen treatment in individual patients. The classification proposed here could constitute the basis for greater agreement among future guidelines and, in the meanwhile, could help less expert physicians recognize the appropriateness of a treatment to choose in the single patient.