Splenic influences on the blood in chronic liver disease

The influence of the spleen on the blood has been assessed in a series of 187 consecutive patients with chronic liver disease. Patients were described as having 'hypersplenism' if the white blood count and/or platelet count were below 4.0 X 10(9)/1 and 100 X 10(9)/1 respectively at the time of biopsy diagnosis and on at least one subsequent occasion. Using this definition 17 per cent of patients with alcoholic cirrhosis had hypersplenism, compared with 38 per cent with cryptogenic cirrhosis and 26 per cent with active chronic hepatitis. Studies with 51Cr labelled autogenous erythrocytes in 36 of the patients with different types of chronic liver disease showed that the spleen rarely caused anaemia either by excessive splenic pooling or splenic haemolysis. Further studies with 51Cr labelled platelets in 20 other patients showed that the splenic platelet pool was usually considerably increased and the platelet life span reduced. Some patients showed excessive destruction of platelets in the spleen but none of these features consistently related to thrombocytopenia. Splenic enlargement per se did not cause expansion of the plasma volume in chronic liver disease. Of a total of 17 patients who underwent surgical operations for reduction of portal pressure five had hypersplenism but in these the haematological state was not significantly improved at one month. However, none of the survivors of these operations subsequently developed hypersplenism. One patient with severe hypersplenism who underwent simple splenectomy was cured of leucopenia but not of thrombocytopenia.