Pancytopenia is a condition in which a person’s body has too few red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Each of these blood cell types has a different job in the body:

• Red blood cells carry oxygen throughout your body.
• White blood cells are part of your immune system and help fight off infections.
• Platelets allow your blood to form clots.

If you have pancytopenia, you have a combination of three different blood diseases:

• anemia, or low level of red blood cells
• leukopenia, or low level of white blood cells
• thrombocytopenia, or low platelet levels

Because your body needs all of these blood cells, pancytopenia can be very serious. It can even be life-threatening if you don’t treat it.

Symptoms

More severe pancytopenia can cause symptoms including:

• shortness of breath
• pale skin
• fatigue
• weakness
• fever
• dizziness
• easy bruising
• bleeding
• tiny purple spots on your skin, called petechiae
• larger purple spots on your skin, called purpura
• bleeding gums and nosebleeds
• fast heart rate

Causes and risk factors

Pancytopenia starts because of a problem with your bone marrow. This spongy tissue inside bones is where blood cells are produced. Diseases and exposure to certain drugs and chemicals can lead to this bone marrow damage.

You’re more likely to develop pancytopenia if you have one of these conditions:

• cancers that affect the bone marrow, such as:

leukemia

multiple myeloma

Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

myelodysplastic syndromes

megaloblastic anemia, a condition in which your body produces larger-than-normal, immature red blood cells and you have a low red blood cell count

• aplastic anemia, a condition in which your body stops making enough new blood cells
• paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, a rare blood disease that causes red blood cells to be destroyed
• Viral infections
• diseases that damage bone marrow, such as Gaucher disease
• damage from chemotherapy or radiation treatments for cancer
• exposure to chemicals in the environment, such as radiation, arsenic, or benzene
• bone marrow disorders that run in families
• vitamin deficiencies, such as lack of vitamin B-12 or folate
• enlargement of your spleen, known as splenomegaly
• liver disease
• excess alcohol use that damages your liver
• autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus
• In about half of all cases, doctors can’t find a cause for pancytopenia. This is called idiopathic pancytopenia.

Treatment options

Treatments for pancytopenia include:

• drugs to stimulate blood cell production in your bone marrow
• blood transfusions to replace red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets
• antibiotics to treat an infection
• a bone marrow transplant, also known as a stem cell transplant, which replaces damaged bone marrow with healthy stem cells that rebuild bone marrow

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