Abstract

Paraneoplastic  secondary  immune  thrombocytopenia  is  a  rare  disorder;  however,  this  entity  may  delay  the  timely  treatment  of  the  underlying  cancer  due  to  the  limiting  side  effects  of  therapy.  There  are  few  reported  cases  of  immune  thrombocytopenia  associated  with clear cell renal carcinoma and it is described that they may have a good response to glucocorticoids and immunoglobulin.

Case  report:  We  present  here  the  case  of  a  70-year-old  patient  with  a  diagnosis  of  clear  cell renal carcinoma with associated severe thrombocytopenia that was initially diagnosed as  disseminated  intravascular  coagulation  lasting  several  months  without  recovering  the  platelet  count  and  therefore  the  patient  could  not  initiate  anticancer  therapy  timely.  Subsequently, the diagnosis was redefined to secondary immune thrombocytopenia after a  detailed  analysis  of  the  blood  count  and  to  achieve  a  good  response  with  the  use  of  oral  prednisone.  The  objective  of  this  report  is  to  describe  the  association  of  some  solid  neoplasms with immune thrombocytopenia, the potential benefit of systemic glucocorticoid therapy, which may allow timely directed therapy for these patients.

Keywords

clear cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma, autoimmune thrombocytopenia