Bilateral adrenal hemorrhage in essential thrombocythemia.
A 67-year-old woman with previously untreated essential thrombocythemia developed bilateral adrenal hemorrhage. She had no known vascular risk factors including smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia. Her platelet count was 921 x 10(9)/l. She received preemptive steroid therapy to prevent the occurrence of adrenal crisis, but 5 weeks later the replacement therapy was discontinued because the patient fully recovered with a normal adrenocorticotropic hormone stimulation test. Thereafter, she remained well for more than 4 years with a platelet count ranging from 600 to 800 x 10(9)/l. Although adrenal hemorrhage is very rare, it can occur as a hemorrhagic complication of essential thrombocythemia.
Kojima
K
K
Department of Medicine II, Okayama University Medical School, 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Okayama 700-8558, Japan. k-koji@md.okayama-u.ac.jp
Fujii
N
N
Takata
S
S
Tezen
T
T
Morikawa
T
T
Kaneda
K
K
Takenaka
K
K
Itoshima
T
T
Tanimoto
M
M
D000307:Adrenal Gland Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006470:Hemorrhage / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D013920:Thrombocythemia, Essential / Q000150:complications*