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World J Gastrointest Endosc. Sep 16, 2016; 8(17): 610-615
Published online Sep 16, 2016. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v8.i17.610
Laparoscopic splenectomy for primary immune thrombocytopenia: Current status and challenges
Dong Zheng, Chen-Song Huang, Shao-Bin Huang, Chao-Xu Zheng
Dong Zheng, Department of Hematology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, Guangdong Province, China
Chen-Song Huang, Shao-Bin Huang, Chao-Xu Zheng, Department of Pancreato-biliary Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510080, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting, critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Supported by Science and Technique Project of Guangdong Province, No. 2012B031800284.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Chao-Xu Zheng, MD, PhD, Professor of Surgery, Department of Pancreato-biliary Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, 58 Zhongshan 2 Road, Guangzhou 510080, Guangdong Province, China. zhengchaoxu@yahoo.com
Telephone: +86-20-87755766-6214 Fax: +86-20-87750632
Received: March 27, 2016
Peer-review started: March 28, 2016
First decision: May 17, 2016
Revised: June 2, 2016
Accepted: June 27, 2016
Article in press: June 29, 2016
Published online: September 16, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Despite the new drugs developed to treat primary immune thrombocytopenia, splenectomy is still the main therapy for patients who fail corticosteroid treatment. Laparoscopic splenectomy proves to be a preferable technique compared to open splenectomy. The response rate to splenectomy should be reassessed based on the unified outcome criteria by current international consensus. So far, there are not widely accepted preoperative indicators predicting response to laparoscopic splenectomy. The challenge facing the doctors is to identify a reliable predictor of long-term outcome of splenectomy which can help make the decision of operation.