Case history
Case history
A 20-year-old black woman presents to her primary care physician complaining of generalised weakness, fevers, and light-headedness for 2 weeks. Her symptoms have worsened over the previous week, when she developed left lower chest pain and left upper quadrant abdominal pain. A urinalysis was obtained, and she was treated for a UTI. She returns to her primary care physician when symptoms continue to worsen.
Other presentations
The presentation of haemolytic anaemia can be highly variable, due to the wide variety of underlying causes. Common symptoms relate to the anaemia and include fatigue, dyspnoea, and light-headedness. While patients with an autoimmune haemolysis may have no other symptoms to direct the evaluation, other causes may be identified from the history or by laboratory evaluation. Recent exposure to a new medication is a common presentation, related to an antibody-mediated red blood cell (RBC) destruction or glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency-related response. A lifelong history of anaemia and haemolysis may indicate a congenital cause due to RBC membrane defect or haemoglobinopathy.
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