The 70-year-old woman was suffering from a rare disease that caused her red blood cells to clump together.
Doctors treating the woman tested her blood and diagnosed cold agglutinin disease. The initial sample showed the blood had clumped. After warming it in a saline bath, it returned to a normal consistency.
"Cold agglutinin disease is a rare form of autoimmune hemolytic anemia—meaning [the] body's own immune system starts to act on its own red blood cells membrane," Konika Sharma and Anush Patel, from the Bassett Medical Center in New York, toldAgglutination, she explained, is where red blood cells clump together, preventing the free flow of red cells.
The woman arrived at a clinic suffering from dizziness and a rash across her whole body. She was diagnosed with the rare condition cold agglutinin disease.It is a rare disease, affecting around one person in a million, and affects around 15 percent of people with autoimmune hemolytic anemia. The team say her condition was likely exacerbated by the viral infection the woman had suffered with and the cold weather in upstate New York at the time. The woman was warmed and given blood transfusions along with rituximab—a drug that targets the immune system."The patient we described had a severe exacerbation, based on profound anemia," Sharma and Patel."She had symptoms because of anemia, we had to give her multiple transfusions of warm blood.
"Her rash slightly improved with warm environment but as we live in the extreme north, where winters are harsh, [the] rash didn't go away completely. She was placed on rituximab, usually medical treatment takes two to four weeks to suppress the immune activation. During that time we continued supportive treatments like blood transfusions and keeping warm."
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