We studied 86 patients suffering from hypersplenism, associated with portal hypertension (39 patients), hematologic disease (45 patients) and with Gaucher's disease (2 patients). Inclusion criteria were the presence of thrombocytopenia < 100.000 x mm3 and leucopenia < 4.000 x mm3. No meaningful differences about the improvement of hypersplenism in portal hypertension were observed between the patients submitted to shunt and splenectomy and those submitted to shunt only. On the contrary, splenectomy caused a quick normalization of the leukothrombocytopenia in the patients suffering from hematologic disease, which, moreover, allowed to perform radio- and chemotherapy in those suffering from malignancies. We reported absence of mortality and a low and aspecific morbidity.