Prognosis in Autoimmune Hæmolytic Anæmia

Abstract

SUMMARY Factors reported to influence the prognosis for patients with autoimmune hæmolytic anæmia are reviewed and compared with experience at the Postgraduate Medical School, London. In the idiopathic warm‐antibody type of hæmolytic anæmia, prognosis depends on the amount of antibody formed and its quality. Of 50 patients in the London series, 23 died, mostly within two years of the onset of the disease, whilst 10 underwent clinical and hæmatological cure. The idiopathic cold‐antibody type of disease is in general not so serious ; nine patients in the London series of 16 have survived for five years or more, and not all deaths have been related to the disease or its treatment. The prognosis in cases of secondary autoimmune hæmolytic anæmia is dominated by the nature of the underlying disease.

The immune haemolytic anaemias: a century of exciting progress in understanding

“…The occurrence of more than one case of AIHA in the same family is, however, most unusual, but it has happened. The author (Dacie, 1969) reported that he had encountered only one example – a sister and brother – out of more than 100 cases of AIHA seen up to that time. Writing in 1992, he was, however, able to list 20 published descriptions of the occurrence of AIHA in more than one family member, included in the relationships were four pairs of twins.…”

Penicillamine Treatment in the Cold‐haemagglutinin Syndrome

“…No specific treatment of the C.A.S. is available (5). Steroids, cytotoxic agents (e. g. urethane, nitrogen mustard) and radiation therapy (thorotrast, radioactive gold, X-ray) have been tried with the aim of reducing the production of cold agglutinins, b u t without success.…”