The investigators have evaluated the frequency and manifestations of anti-prothrombin antibodies in patients with the lupus anticoagulant. Thirty-one of 42 patients with lupus anticoagulants associated with a variety of underlying conditions (74%) had evidence on crossed immunoelectrophoresis of anti-prothrombin antibodies. Twenty-four of 25 patients with an activated partial thromboplastin tim...

Anticardiolipin antibodies are a group of antiphospholipid autoantibodies seen primarily in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and other autoimmune diseases. We report 3 patients, 2 without systemic lupus, who suffered ischemic brain infarction associated with these antibodies in the absence of detectable lupus anticoagulant activity. Anticardiolipin antibodies, possibly associated with...

A 5 year old girl with systemic lupus erythematosus developed extensive thromboses at multiple sites. Coagulation screen confirmed presence of the lupus anticoagulant. She recovered satisfactorily on high dose steroids without the use of anticoagulant treatment.

The lupus anticoagulant, an acquired circulating serum y-globulin, prolongs all phospholipid-dependent coagulation tests. Recent associations of the lupus anticoagulant and focal cerebral and/or ocular ischemia have been made. We present 5 cases of lupus anticoagulant-associated cerebrovascular ischemia and review all reported cases for the first time. Clinical spectra, cerebral angiographic fi...

The lupus anticoagulant was found in the plasma of 31 of 60 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and other connective tissue disorders (mixed connective tissue disease, systemic vasculitis, polyarteritis nodosa, primary sicca syndrome, discoid lupus, Behcet's syndrome, and systemic sclerosis). Strong associations were found with biological false positive seroreaction for syphilis and thro...

References 1. Levine SR, Welch KMA: Cerebrovascular ischemia associated with lupus anticoagulant. Stroke 1987; 18:257-263 2. Levine SR, Welch KMA: The spectrum of neurological disease associated with antiphospholipid antibodies: Lupus anticoagulants and anticardiolipin antibodies. Arch Neurol 1987;44: 876-883 3. Levine SR, Welch KMA: Antiphospholipid antibodies. Ann Neurol 1989;26:386-389 4. Ya...

SIR, We completely agree with Dr E N Harris that carrying out clotting assays to detect lupus anticoagulant is more difficult than an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for anticardiolipin antibodies. Specialised laboratories are necessary, coagulation tests are time consuming, and improper preparation and handling of plasma samples strongly influence the results of lupus anticoagulant a...

Although observations have implied that lupus anticoagulants have immunologic specificity toward anionic phospholipids, this assumption has been directly demonstrated in only one patient with a monoclonal IgM paraprotein. We tested the generality of this hypothesis directly by isolating five IgG lupus anticoagulants from patients with lupuslike syndromes and/or thrombosis. IgG lupus anticoagula...

Antiphospholipid syndrome(APLS) is a prothrombotic state characterized by recurrent venous thrombotic events including deep venous thrombosis, as well as pulmonary embolism, arterial thrombosis, recurrent fatal loss due to placental thrombosis and the presence of circulating antiphospholipid antibodies(APA) (Roubey RAS, 2001). As both thrombosis and pregnancy morbidity have a large number of ot...