A 42-year-old previously healthy woman presented with a 2-month history of recurrent fever and painful swelling on the left thigh. She was given a presumptive diagnosis of cellulitis and an antimicrobial. Because the response was not significant and fever remained moderate to high grade, with the appearance of gradually increasing periorbital edema (Figure 1), the diagnosis was reconsidered, and she was referred to a tertiary referral center for further study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPathol Biol (Paris)
October 2011
Activated protein C resistance (APCR) is a coagulation abnormality often linked to FV Leiden mutation, a single nucleotide G1691A substitution resulting in arginine 506→glutamine missense factor V mutation. FV Leiden has a frequency of 20 to 30% in groups of patients with venous thrombosis while it is of 4 to 10% in normal subjects. FV Leiden is considered as a weak risk factor of thrombosis except in homozygote.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnfractionated heparin has been used as antithrombotic therapy for many years. Its main effect is attributed to the activation of antithrombin (AT), the heparin/AT complex inactivating both factor IIa (thrombin) and factor Xa. Resistance to unfractionated heparin with clinical or biological expression is uncommon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVon Willebrand disease is the most common inherited bleeding disorder, with autosomal genetic transmission, dominant in most cases. It is due to quantitative and/or qualitative deficiency of Von Willebrand factor, a multimeric complex glycoprotein that plays 2 central roles in hemostasis, since it is implicated in adhesion and aggregation of platelets under conditions of high shear forces and acts as a carrier for coagulation factor VIII in plasma. Clinically, this disease is mostly characterized by mucocutaneous bleeding and marked clinical heterogeneity, even in the same family, going from severe to uncouth forms or even asymptomatic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Some patients with autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) have in their sera autohemolysins able to hemolyze RBCs in vitro by activation of complement. We describe three autohemolysins in patients with AIHA and we study clinical correlations.
Study Design And Methods: Thirty-two patients with AIHA were explored by immuno-hematological investigations (DAT, elution and serum testing).