Esplenectomía en pacientes con enfermedades no traumáticas del bazo: un estudio de 40 años

Introduction: non-traumatic splenic diseases requiring splenectomy are numerous, infrequent, or rare. At the Hospital General Docente “Agostinho Neto” in Guantánamo, Cuba, no studies exist on the outcomes of patients who have undergone splenic surgery due to non-traumatic splenopathy. Objective: to characterize patients with non-traumatic splenopathy who underwent splenectomy between 1985 and 2025. Method: a study was conducted on 74 patients discharged from the General Surgery service of this hospital. The following variables were analyzed: age, sex, non-traumatic splenic disease requiring splenectomy, clinical-hematological criteria, type of splenectomy performed, associated surgical intervention, complications, and number of deaths. Results: the mean age was 41±17 years, and females predominated (64.4%). Immune thrombocytopenic purpura(20.2%), hereditary microspherocytosis (13.0%), and pseudocyst (13.0%) were the three most common non-traumatic splenic diseases. The clinical-hematological most frequent were: tumor (26.1%), thrombocytopenia (18.0%), and anemia (18.0%). Sixty-eight total splenectomies were performed (92.0%). Twelve cholecystectomies were performed (44.4%), followed by seven liver and lymph node biopsies (26.0%), respectively. Twelve patients (16.2%) experienced complications, and four patients died. The postoperative mortality rate was 5.4%. Conclusions: the indications, execution and results of conventional splenectomy in non-traumatic diseases of the spleen are similar to those found in series in the international literature.