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The management of older patients with chronic primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is still very challenging because of the fragility of older patients who frequently have severe comorbidities and/or disabilities. Corticosteroid-based first-line therapies fail in most of the cases and patients require a second-line treatment, choosing between rituximab, thrombopoietin-receptor agonists and splenectomy. The choice of the best treatment in elderly patients is a compromise between effectiveness and safety and laparoscopic splenectomy may be a good option with a complete remission rate of 67% at 60 months. But relapse and complication rates remain higher than in younger splenectomized ITP patients because elderly patients undergo splenectomy with unfavorable conditions (age >60 year-old, presence of comorbidities, or multiple previous treatments) which negatively influence the outcome, regardless the hematological response. For these reasons, a good management of concomitant diseases and the option to not use the splenectomy as the last possible treatment could improve the outcome of old splenectomized patients., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement: Authors state no conflict of interest. Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) is a rare hematologic disease, primarily affecting adults or children with immunodeficiency disease. First-line therapy consists of long course of steroids administration, with an early complete response rate (CRr) of 75-80%, but up to 20-30% of patients requires a second-line therapy. Rituximab is the first choice in refractory old AIHA patients, because of its safety and efficacy (early CRr at 80-90% and at 68% at 2-3 years). For this reason, splenectomy is even less chosen as second-line therapy in elderly, even though laparoscopic technique decreased complication and mortality rates. However, splenectomy can be still considered a good therapeutic option with a CRr of 81% at 35.6 months in patients older than 60 year-old, when rituximab administration cannot be performed., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest statement: Authors state no conflict of interest Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.