Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an autoimmune disease with a mild to severe risk of bleeding complications. First line treatment includes corticosteroids, immunoglobulins, or other. In this large cohort study, first-line strategies for treatment-naive adult primary ITP was studied in a real-world setting. Records from all adult ITP patients who received first-line treatment between January 2010 and December 2017 at Qilu Hospital were reviewed retrospectively (n = 699). During the study period, 271 patients were treated with high-dose dexamethasone (HDD) and 289 patients were treated with conventional prednisone (alone or in combination with other drugs). Initial responses were similar for the two groups (88.56% vs. 86.51%, P = 0.462), but patients in the HDD group responded earlier than the prednisone group (3 days vs. 5 days, P < 0.001). The sustained response (SR) at 6 months was lower in the HDD group than in the prednisone group (35.4% vs. 47.1%, P = 0.040). However, the SR at 12 months and at the end of our follow-up were not significantly different between the groups. Overall duration of response (DOR) in the prednisone group was longer than in the HDD group throughout the follow-up period (P = 0.007). However, the incidence of SR and overall DOR were not significantly different between the HDD group and the prednisone 3 months group (prednisone terminated within 3 months). The presence of anti-GPIb-IX autoantibodies was a predictive factor for a poor initial response to corticosteroids therapy (P < 0.05). However, neither of the two antiplatelet autoantibodies were correlated with the opportunity to achieve SR and overall DOR in both groups throughout the follow-up period (P > 0.05). Adverse events were more frequent and long-lasting in the prednisone group. Our study showed that HDD provided an effective and more rapid response as initial treatment of ITP, with comparable long-term prognosis and better tolerance when compared with conventional PDN (less than 3 months) in the real-world setting.

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