Can ITP be diagnosed for certain without a bone marrow biopsy?

[PaigeEl]

I'm 19 years old and have been diagnosed with ITP. I have had all the blood tests for Hep C, lupus everything else included and they have all came back negative. The doctor says It must've been triggered by a virus or something. But wouldn't i have known if I'd had a virus because I'd have felt ill?

Can ITP be diagnosed for certain without a bone marrow biopsy to determine it's not something to do with cancer? Or can the doctor know just by the blood test results that it's not cancer related? Is it certain?

I'm currently on 50mg of prednisolone a day which has made my platelets rise but now going up very slowly and I'm worried it may stop and become in effective.

But my main question is, is it worth asking the doctor why he hasn't done a bone marrow biopsy or will he know for good that it's not cancer just from blood tests?

Or is he waiting to find out of the prednisolone works first before he does more tests.

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero]

Here is a good general article on ITP... bone marrow biopsies are done but usually on old patients...

As the article mention, diagnosis is done by excluding things...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi...

[PaigeEl in reply to Cllcanada]

Thanks so much :)!