Pathogenic members of the genus Leptospira are the causative agents of leptospirosis, a neglected disease of public and veterinary health concern. Leptospirosis is a systemic disease that in its severest forms leads to renal insufficiency, hepatic dysfunction, and pulmonary failure. Many strains of Leptospira produce hemolytic and sphingomyelinase activities, and a number of candidate leptospir...

F OR A MODEST SUM, Sigma Chemical Company will supply a diagnostic kit that will enable one to determine the glutathione reductase activity of the erythrocytes in a patient with hemolytic anemia. This kit or one or another assay procedure for glutathione reductase is used by conscientious physicians in the work-up of patients with chronic hemolysis. Unfortunately, the money and effort are waste...

Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) is a rare renal disease (two per one million in the USA) characterized by microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and acute renal failure. Both sporadic (80% of cases) and familial (20% of cases) forms are recognized. The study of familial aHUS has implicated genetic variation in multiple genes in the complement system in disease pathogenes...

Pernicious anemia is an autoimmune disease with a variety of clinical presentations. We describe a case of pernicious anemia presenting with pancytopenia with hemolytic features. Further workup revealed very low vitamin B12 levels and elevated methylmalonic acid. It is important for a general internist to identify pernicious anemia as one of the cause of pancytopenia and hemolytic anemia to avo...

Tuberculosis (TB), a common health problem in developing countries, is a specific multi-systemic infection that can lead protean manifestations in any organ system. Anemia and leukocytosis are the most frequent hematological findings at presentation and during the long clinical course of the disease. Coombs’-positive hemolytic anemia and immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) are exceedingly rar...

Ceftriaxone-induced hemolytic anemia is a rare and often fatal phenomenon. We report here the case of a 6-year-old female with sickle cell disease who survived a brisk and profound hemolytic reaction, resulting in hemoglobin of 0.4 g/dL, after ceftriaxone infusion. Ongoing hemolysis was abrogated with aggressive supportive care, but the patient suffered extensive neurologic sequelae as a result...

We detected increased concentrations of lipoperoxidation products, as malondialdehyde, in the serum of an infant with classic hemolytic-uremic syndrome. The concentrations declined when peritoneal dialysis was initiated and eventually returned to normal after clinical recovery. Our observation adds to the existing body of evidence that links the pathogenesis of hemolytic-uremic syndrome to pero...

T PRESENT, corticosteroids and splenectomy constitute the main forms of therapy in autoimmune hemolytic anemia. In general, the patient is given a large dose of prednisone for a short period until the hemolytic process aI)ates, then the dose of corticosteroid is reduced to the minimum (lose which controls the disease.’ If this maintenance dose for tile individual patient is too high to permit p...

T PRESENT, corticosteroids and splenectomy constitute the main forms of therapy in autoimmune hemolytic anemia. In general, the patient is given a large dose of prednisone for a short period until the hemolytic process aI)ates, then the dose of corticosteroid is reduced to the minimum (lose which controls the disease.’ If this maintenance dose for tile individual patient is too high to permit p...

BACKGROUND Transfusion is a cornerstone of the management of sickle cell disease but carries a high risk of hemolytic transfusion reaction, probably because of differences in erythrocyte antigens between blood donors of European descent and patients of African descent. Patients may experience hemolytic transfusion reactions that are delayed by from a few days to two weeks and manifest as acute ...