The difficulty to differentiate AITP from incidental thrombocytopenia when thrombocytopenia is first discovered during pregnancy has been underlined. It could be of interest to have a maternal follow-up after delivery for diagnosis. In an attempt to define the frequency of neonatal thrombocytopenia in an unselected population of newborns and the contribution of immune etiologies, a multicenter prospective study was conducted in Paris. This finding is of importance for monitoring thrombocytopenic newborns and management of their mothers and future pregnancies. At the moment, severe neonatal thrombocytopenia, intracerebral hemorrhage in a thrombocytopenic neonate, unexplained thrombocytopenia, and familial transient neonatal thrombocytopenia must be considered for testing.
Laboratory diagnosis requires parental platelet typing and identification of maternal antibody.
Autoimmunity Cytokine profiles in ITP A brief overview of cytokines in autoimmune thrombocytopenia was presented. The theoretical basis of pro-inflammatory cytokines produced in the settings of the normal response to therapy and the abnormal response of chronic autoimmune processes such as diabetes mellitus and rheumatoid arthritis was discussed. It was emphasized that the obtained oligopeptides are more likely to be mimotopes than the true B cell epitopes. One of the three peptides was also recognized by the serum IgG of another patient, which suggests the possiblity of shared epitopes between patients. Two interesting cases of severe pregnancy-related thrombocytopenia were presented.