cytopenia
Meaning of cytopenia: A shortage of one or more blood cell types, given a different name depending on which line has run low.
Definition of cytopenia
Cytopenia means a lower than normal number of one or more types of blood cell. Too few red cells is anemia, too few platelets is thrombocytopenia, and too few of the infection-fighting neutrophils is neutropenia. A shortage across all three lines at once is called pancytopenia, and each pattern points toward different causes.
How cytopenia is built
- cyt/o Combining form · Greek cell
- -penia Suffix · Greek deficiency, abnormally low count
A medical term is read from its ending backwards: the suffix first, then the prefix, then the root. See all 223 word parts.
What are the named shortages?
| Cell type | Name of the shortage | What follows |
|---|---|---|
| Red cells | Anemia | Tiredness, breathlessness, pallor |
| Platelets | Thrombocytopenia | Bruising and bleeding |
| Neutrophils | Neutropenia | Frequent or severe infection |
| Lymphocytes | Lymphopenia | Vulnerability to viruses |
| All three lines | Pancytopenia | A combination of the above |
Why does it happen?
Every cause falls into one of three groups. Production can fail, when marrow is damaged by chemotherapy or radiation, invaded by cancer, or starved of iron, vitamin B12 or folate. Destruction can be excessive, when the immune system attacks the cells, an infection consumes them, or an enlarged spleen traps and removes them. Loss can be direct, through bleeding. Working out which of the three is at work directs everything that follows, and a marrow sample is often what settles the question.
How is it detected?
A full blood count measures every line at once and is among the commonest tests in medicine. Results are compared against a reference range that shifts with age, sex, altitude and pregnancy. A film, in which a drop is spread across a slide and examined, adds what a count cannot give, including the size and shape of the cells and whether abnormal forms are present. The trend across several counts often matters more than a single value, since a gradual fall suggests something different from an abrupt one.
How is it managed?
The approach depends on the cause and on how far the count has dropped. A shortage caused by a missing nutrient corrects once that nutrient is replaced. One caused by a drug often recovers after the drug is stopped. Severe anemia or a very low platelet count can be corrected for a time by blood transfusion, which raises the number without addressing the reason behind it. Neutropenia carries the most immediate danger, because infection can advance rapidly when the cells that produce its usual signs are absent.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
Cytopenia across all three cell lines prompted a bone marrow examination.
Good to know
Fever in a person with very few neutrophils is treated as an emergency, because the usual outward signs of infection depend on white cells that are not there.
Word origin
Where “cytopenia” comes from
From the Greek kytos, a hollow vessel and later a cell, with penia, meaning poverty or lack.