Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffTreatment of thrombocythemia depends on your risk of blood-clotting or bleeding episodes. If you're younger than 50, have had no signs or symptoms and have no other risk factors for developing blood clots, such as smoking, you may just need periodic medical checkups. If you're older than 60 and have had previous signs and symptoms of the disease, you're at greater risk of clotting or bleeding, and your doctor likely will prescribe medication or a medical procedure to lower your platelet count.
Medication
If you're at risk of blood clots, your doctor may recommend low-dose aspirin, particularly if you're pregnant. Aspirin makes the platelets less sticky and your blood less likely to form clots with little risk to a fetus. However, if you take aspirin during pregnancy, stop taking it at least one week before delivery to lower your risk of bleeding complications during delivery.
The platelet-lowering drugs most commonly used to treat thrombocythemia include:
- Hydroxyurea (Hydrea, Droxia). This drug suppresses bone marrow's production of blood cells, including platelets. Also used to treat cancers, it's the most commonly prescribed platelet-lowering drug for thrombocythemia. It's sometimes used with aspirin. If you take this drug, your doctor will monitor you and your blood counts closely. There's some evidence that long-term use increases your risk of developing acute myelogenous leukemia, but compared with other drugs of its type, hydroxyurea is thought to have less potential for causing leukemia.
- Anagrelide (Agrylin). Unlike hydroxyurea, anagrelide doesn't kill cells while lowering platelet counts, nor is it associated with increased risk of leukemia. However, it's not considered as effective as hydroxyurea. Side effects may include fluid retention, heart problems, headaches, dizziness, nausea and diarrhea. Anagrelide isn't recommended for older people with pre-existing heart conditions.
- Interferon alfa. Given by injection, this drug is less convenient to administer than hydroxyurea or anagrelide, may be more expensive and may cause less tolerable side effects. Side effects may include flu-like symptoms, confusion, nausea, depression, diarrhea, seizures, irritability and sleepiness.
Plateletpheresis
Used only in emergencies, such as when your blood is clotting dangerously, a medical procedure known as plateletpheresis rapidly lowers platelet count. During the procedure, an intravenous (IV) needle connected to a tube is inserted into one of your blood vessels to remove your blood. A device removes the platelets from your blood. The liquid portion of your blood (plasma) and your red cells are returned to you through an IV line. The effect is temporary.
