CHILD BEARING AND IDIOPATHIC THROMBOCYTOPENIC PURPURA

PREGNANCY in association with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura is not common, and Tancer (1960) in an extensive review could find only 72 confirmed cases. Experience in compiling the present series, however, suggests that the condition occurs more frequently than these figures indicate, and that most obstetricians will face the problem of dealing with a case more than once. An accurate assessment of the effects of a disease such as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura on the pregnant woman and her child and of the effects of pregnancy on the disease process itself, can only be obtained by the analysis of all pregnancies occurring in a large group of women with the complaint. Previous analyses, e.g., Peterson and Larson (1954), Tancer (1960), Goodhue and Evans (1963), have been of isolated pregnancies, or small groups of pregnancies, collected from the literature which were often reported originally because of some particularly unusual feature. The present series, however, comprises all pregnancies occurring in a group of women affected by the disease, selected only in that some time in the course of a 15-year period they attended the haematology clinic of the Manchester Royal Infirmary. It should therefore provide the basis of a more accurate assessment than has previously been available; furthermore, it is possible with such a series to draw conclusions as to the effect of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura on fertility in the female.