Kinetics of megakaryocyte progenitor cells in idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura

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Abstract
The number and proliferative state of megakaryocyte progenitor cells (CFU-Meg) were compared between 13 patients with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) and hematologically normal controls. The mean frequency of CFU-Meg assayed by the plasma clot method was 27.8 ± 12.2 (± SD)/2×105 bone marrow light-density cells for the ITP patients, which did not differ significantly from the control value of 31.9 ± 16.1. The percentage of CFU-Meg in DNA synthesis estimated by the3H-thymidine suicide technique was 41.3% ± 9.2% in ITP, which was significantly greater than the control value of 27.1% ± 7.4% (P < 0.01). The megakaryocyte counts for histological sections prepared from bone marrow aspirates from the ITP patients and controls were 34.5 ± 8.5/mm2 and 11.2 ± 5.8/mm2, respectively, with the difference being highly significant (P < 0.001). These results suggest that increased cycling activity in a quantitatively unchanged CFU-Meg pool may lead to increased megakaryocytes in the bone marrow of ITP patients.