Warm red blood cell autoantibodies and clinical diagnoses in patients with or without autoimmune hemolysis

• Published in: Transfusion clinique et biologique : journal de la Société française de transfusion sanguine 2020-02, Vol.27 (1), p.25-29
• Main Authors: Kruhonja Galic, Z., Jagnjic, S., Bingulac-Popovic, J., Planinc Peraica, A., Hecimovic, A., Strauss Patko, M., Jukic, I.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anémie hémolytique auto-immune chaud; Auto-anticorps anti-érythrocytaires; Autoimmune hemolytic anemia; IgG; RBC autoantibody
• ISSN: 1246-7820
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tracli.2019.10.001

Red blood cell autoantibodies (RBC autoAbs) of IgG class are found in the majority of patients with warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia (wAIHA) but sometimes also during the pretransfusion testing of patients with different diagnoses but without hemolysis. The aim of the study was to identify the main differences between these two groups of patients according to age, gender, subclass and titer of IgG RBC autoAbs and diagnosis. In the 9-year retrospective study, data were collected from records of 291 patients with IgG RBC autoAbs detected by gel technique, from which 111 with wAIHA. More than 85% of patients in both groups were over 40 years old, with male to female ratio 1:1.9 in wAIHA vs 1:1.3 in patients without hemolysis (P=0.0916). The main characteristics of patients with wAIHA vs patients without hemolysis were: IgG only 38% vs 70%, IgG+Complement 62% vs 30%, total IgG1 79% vs 55%, IgG1+IgG3 35% vs 11%, titer of 100 for IgG1+IgG3 17% vs 3% (P