Autoimmune hemolytic anemia occurred prior to evident nephropathy in a patient with chronic hepatitis C virus infection: case report

BMC Nephrology

Hiroyuki Ohi¹  Takayuki Fujita¹  Morito Endo¹  Sumiko Hashimoto²  Yuki Uehara³  Isao Ohsawa¹ 

[1] Internal medicine II Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan;Clinical laboratory, Nihon University Itabashi hospital, Tokyo, Japan;Department of laboratory medicine, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Others  :  1083450
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2369-4-7

 received in 2003-03-28, accepted in 2003-08-29,  发布年份 2003

【 摘 要 】

Background

Renal involvement in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection has been suggested to be due to a variety of immunological processes. However, the precise mechanism by which the kidneys are damaged in these patients is still unclear.

Case presentation

A 66 year old man presented with the sudden onset of autoimmune hemolytic anemia. Concomitant with a worsening of hemolysis, his initially mild proteinuria and hemoglobinuria progressed. On admission, laboratory tests revealed that he was positive for hepatitis C virus in his blood, though his liver function tests were all normal. The patient displayed cryoglobulinemia and hypocomplementemia with cold activation, and exhibited a biological false positive of syphilic test. Renal biopsy specimens showed signs of immune complex type nephropathy with hemosiderin deposition in the tubular epithelial cells.

Conclusions

The renal histological findings in this case are consistent with the deposition of immune complexes and hemolytic products, which might have occurred as a result of the patient's underlying autoimmune imbalance, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and chronic hepatitis C virus infection.

【 授权许可】

   
2003 Ohsawa et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.

【 图 表 】

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