Study for Clinical Features and Etiological Pattern at Tertiary Care Settings in Abbottabad

Pancytopenia is an important hematological problem encountered in our day-to-day clinical practice. It is a decrease in all three cellular elements of peripheral blood leading to anemia, 1 leucopenia and thrombocytopenia . Pancytopenia usually presents with symptoms of bone marrow failure such as pallor, dyspnea, bleeding, bruising 2 and increased tendency to infections . The laboratory diagnosis of pancytopenia is evident by low values of hemoglobin (≤10.0 g/dl), white 9 blood cells (≤4.0×10 /L) and platelet counts 9 (≤150×10 /L). The incidence of various disorders causing pancytopenia varies according to geographical distribution and genetic mutations . It can result either from failure of production of hematopoietic progenitors in bone marrow, or malignant cell infiltration, or antibody-mediated bone marrow suppression, or ineffective hematopoiesis and dysplasia, and peripheral sequestration of blood cells in overactive reticulo3 endothelial system . The main causes of pancytopenia are aplastic anemia, hyper4 splenism, myelodyplastic syndrome , nutritional 5 deficiencies leading to megaloblastic anemia , sub-leukemic (acute) leukemias, multiple myeloma, paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and infections such as HIV, miliary tuberculosis, brucellosis, and leishmaniasis.