Familial Autoimmune Haemolytic Anaemia Associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Pernicious Anaemia

Abstract

Summary. A family was studied in which one son, a daughter and a paternal aunt showed clinical and laboratory evidence of autoimmune haemolytic disease. The father has long‐standing rheumatoid arthritis, another son has proven pernicious anaemia while one daughter, though clinically well, exhibits mild serological abnormality. Other clinically normal members of this family were also investigated. Anti‐parietal cell antibodies were demonstrated in one case of autoimmune haemolytic disease in addition to being noted in the serum of the member with pernicious anaemia. The direct antiglobulin reaction was strongly positive in those affected by haemolytic disease, but in addition a weak positive reaction was demonstrated in the case of pernicious anaemia where eluate studies indicated the possibility of an antibody similar in nature to the one present in the haemolytic cases, rather than a non‐specific reaction. The pattern of cold auto‐antibodies, warm auto‐ and iso‐antibodies and other abnormal serology found in the blood of different members of this family would appear to suggest a common hereditary basis for the diseases present.

Autoimmune Haemolysis in Childhood and Adolescence

“…Similar specificities were noted in other reports [4,9,20,31], and in 1 patient with IgM autoantibodies, the ABO system was involved [32], Our youngest patient was 3 months old but AIH occurring earlier has been report ed [4,7,10,33,34], including 1 patient who was diagnosed at 2 weeks [35]. AIH in childhood rarely has a familial occurrence [36][37][38], but no such cases were seen in the present study.…”

Association of Familial Pernicious Anaemia and Hereditary Haemochromatosis

“…A familial occurrence of pernicious anaemia has already been described in several publications [1,2,3,8,9,10] and is frequently associated with vitiligo. …”

Concurrent reactive arthritis, Graves' disease, and warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia: a case report

“…There are only a few case reports of hereditary autoimmune hemolytic anemia [13-16]. The paucity of reports and the sporadic pattern of involvement suggests that familial occurrence of AIHA is likely to be coincidental, although the sharing of HLA antigens 1 and 8 in a report of two affected sisters might argue for a genetic susceptibility in some cases [15].…”

“…We report the case of a 40-year-old man who developed severe warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia while under treatment for both Graves’ disease and reactive arthritis. Our subject’s mother and possibly his maternal grandmother also had autoimmune hemolytic anemia, which raises the possibility of hereditary autoimmune hemolytic anemia, a rarely reported condition [13-16]. …”