TO STUDY THE CLINICO-ETIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF PATIENTS WITH SPLENOMEGALY IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL - A CROSS-SECTIONAL OBSERVATIONAL STUDY.

Introduction:a palpable spleen suggests enlargement of the organ and is an important clinical sign produced by diseases affecting the spleen. The incidence and etiology of splenomegaly is strongly dependent on the geographical location. In a patient, splenomegaly should be investigated properly to ascertain the etiology. Causes may vary with diseases prevalent in that area. Materials and methods: this cross sectional, observational study was performed in 510 adult patients with splenomegaly who reported to department of medicine gmc jammu from may 2014 to april 2015, over a period of 1 year. The patients were evaluated for their complete clinical profile & etiology of splenomegaly. Grading of splenomegaly was done by hacket's grading. Thorough relevant investigations were carried out. Results:most patients were below 45 years of age. Most common etiological category of splenomegaly was hematological (54.7%) followed by congestive (17.6%), infectious (12.7%) and other (4.9%) causes. Most common splenomegaly patients belong to hacket?s grade ii (54.7%), followed by grade iii (27.84%), grade i (12.94%) & grade iv (4.31%). Among hematological etiology chronic myeloid leukemia was the most common cause (25.3%). Malaria was the commonest etiology among infectious causes (5.9%). On clinical examination pallor was present in 33.1% cases. 10.6% of patients had gi symptoms, 5.9% of patients had icterus, lymphadenopathy was present in 7.8% patients. We compared the results of our study with other studies & concluded that clinical profile & etiological spectrum of splenomegaly varies from region to region. Conclusion: the present study concludes that splenomegaly in a symptomatic person should be properly evaluated. In our study hematological causes (54.7%) outnumbered the non hematological cause (45.3%) of splenomegaly.