A Case of Term Pregnant Woman with Pseudothrombocytopenia: An Overlooked Phenomenon

Objective: To report a case of pregnant woman with low thrombocyte count which in fact has spurious thrombocytopenia.
Methods: A 40-week pregnant woman was admitted to our obstetric clinic with complaint and signs of active labour. She was hospitalized and followed for the vaginal birth.
Results: On laboratory examination, the low platelet (Plt) count as 42 x 103/mm3 was measured by using blood samples with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). Patient had no history for echymosis, bleeding disorders and bruising. She underwent a differential diagnosis for thrombocytopenia in term pregnancy for preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, acute fatty liver disease or immune thrombocytopenic purpura and no pathology was found. The peripheral blood smear showed platelet (plt) clustering with normal count as 181 x 103/mm3. She diagnosed as pseudothrombocytopenia. The patient delivered a healthy baby with vaginal way and had no bleeding complication in pospartum period.
Conclusion: Thrombocytopenia in pregnancy is a challenging and important issue for obstetrician. We aimed to point out that low Plt count doesn’t indicate always a serious disease in term pregnancy. Pseudothrombocytopenia should be kept in mind which may cause unnecessary laboratory examination and treatments.