Introduction: Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) and the associated biologic and psychological effects can lead to reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Areas covered: This review focuses on the impact of ITP itself and its treatment on patients' HRQoL. The findings show that the HRQoL is uniformly reduced amongst ITP patients, both with and without interventions. ITP significantly affects many aspects of patient HRQoL, which is comparable to that of patients with other chronic diseases. However, there is a lack of longitudinal studies among unselected ITP populations and the majority of studies focus on statistical differences between groups or between measures at different time points rather than quality of life (QoL) changes that are perceived as clinically relevant in patients. Expert commentary: Due to ITP being a chronic disease with an ongoing risk of bleeding, many treatments, and a good prognosis for survival, patients deal with their symptoms over prolonged time periods and good HRQoL is very important. In this review of HRQoL in ITP, we provide data on the current understanding, how HRQoL may be modified by treatment, and why it needs to be included as an outcome in future studies to optimize management of HRQoL issues in clinical practice.
Keywords: ITP; ITP-PAQ; SF-36; autoimmunity; fatigue.