Meaning & use
thrombocytopenia
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountablemedical
A condition in which the blood contains too few platelets, the cells that help blood clot, so bruising and bleeding come more easily.
Grammar: No article for the general condition: she was diagnosed with thrombocytopenia.
Patterns
- diagnosed with thrombocytopenia
- thrombocytopenia caused by something
Doctors suspected thrombocytopenia when she kept getting unexplained bruises.
Certain drugs can cause thrombocytopenia as a side effect.
The patient's thrombocytopenia improved after treatment began.
Common combinations
- severe thrombocytopenia
- Severe thrombocytopenia can lead to dangerous bleeding.
- drug-induced thrombocytopenia
- Drug-induced thrombocytopenia usually clears once the medicine is stopped.
- immune thrombocytopenia
- Immune thrombocytopenia happens when the body destroys its own platelets.
- diagnose thrombocytopenia
- A routine blood count helped diagnose thrombocytopenia.
- treat thrombocytopenia
- Steroids are one way to treat thrombocytopenia.
Synonyms and how they differ
- low platelet count
- Low platelet count is the plain-English phrase for the same finding, while thrombocytopenia is the formal diagnosis.
Opposites
Word family
- thrombocytopenic adjective
- relating to or affected by thrombocytopenia
- thrombocyte noun
- a platelet
- thrombocytosis noun
- an abnormally high number of platelets
- platelet noun
- a blood cell fragment that helps clotting
Commonly confused: thrombocytopenia or thrombosis?
thrombocytopenia vs thrombosis
Thrombosis is a blood clot forming inside a vessel. Thrombocytopenia is a shortage of platelets, which makes bleeding more likely.
Practice
A patient with thrombocytopenia is most likely to have ___.
Choose one answer.
Thrombocytopenia means too few platelets. A blocked artery suggests thrombosis, and the other options describe unrelated conditions.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “thrombocytopenia”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.