Cold agglutinin disease (CAD)with autoimmune haemolytic anaemia: A case report of a coronary artery disease patient

Abstract

Cold agglutinin disease (CAD) with autoimmune haemolytic anemia is characterized by the production of harmful cold autoantibodies associated with increased red cell destruction during exposure to cold. The treatment of CAD is very difficult and a great effort is required to obtain therapeutic success. Cyclophosphamide is a potent immunosuppressive agent which is widely used in all bone marrow transplantation conditioning regimens for patients with acquired severe aplastic anemia. In this report, we describe the case of a coronary artery disease patient with severe CAD, but without lymphoproliferative disease, in which general measures and immunosuppressive therapies were adopted, there by avoiding blood transfusions.