Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC)
Autoimmune haemolytic anaemia (AIHA) is an uncommon disorder characterized by shortened red blood cell (RBC) survival and the presence of autoantibodies directed against autologous RBCs.’ It presents with anaemia, jaundice, and splenomegaly with reticulocytosis, unconjugated hyperbilirubinaemia, and direct antiglobulin test (DAT) positivity.’ AIHA has an estimated incidence of 1–3 cases per 100,000 subjects per year, a prevalence of 17:100,000 and a mortality rate of 11%. AIHA is classified as warm AIHA (75.0% of all AIHA cases), cold AIHA (about 15.0%), and mixed type AIHA (less than 5.0%), based on the thermal range of autoantibodies involved in the pathogenesis. It can be idiopathic (50.0%) or secondary to lymphoproliferative syndromes (20.0%), autoimmune diseases (20.0%), infections, tumors and drugs. The laboratory diagnosis of AIHA depends on the result of direct antiglobulin test (DAT) which shows positivity with anti-IgG (usually in warm AIHA) and/or anti-C3d (usually in cold AIHA) antisera, and also the presence of laboratory findings supporting hemolysis such as increase of serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), reticulocytosis and spherocytosis in peripheral blood smears. The treatment of AIHA is still not