ABSTRACT
Traditional treatment of chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (CITP) is usually adopted as hormonal therapy. If necessary, it also can be given immunosuppressive therapy. In order to investigate the curative effect of rhIL-11 on patients with ITP, 26 patients were divided into control group and rhIL-11 group, each group with 13 patients. Control group was given traditional hormonal therapy and immunosuppressive therapy, while rhIL-11 group was given rhIL-11 on base of traditional therapy. rhIL-11 25 microg/(kg.d) was injected s.c. for 28 days. The results showed that 23 out of 26 patients obtained obviously curative effect in platelet count, especially in rhIL-11 group, but another 3 patients had no response on therapy. The platelet counts of control and rhIL-11 groups increased from 26.15 x 10(9)/L and 27.84 x 10(9)/L before treatment to 66.62 x 10(9)/L and 105.62 x 10(9)/L after treatment. The platelet count of rhIL-11 group after treatment was remarkably higher than that of the control group (p < 0.05). Platelet count of 8 patients in rhIL-11 group recovered to normal. It is concluded that rhIL-11 combined with traditional hormone-immuno-suppressive therapy is effective to CITP.