Seasonal variation of immune hemolytic anemia

Abstract

Aim: Immune hemolytic anemia is an autoimmune disease that is related to autoantibodies against erythrocytes. Such antibodies appear for a variety of reasons such as hematologic and oncologic malignancies, infections, and connective tissue diseases but in many cases, a true etiologic agent has not been discovered. Many hematologic as well as rheumatologic disorders have seasonal variations but there have not been many studies evaluating the possibility of seasonal variation of immune hemolytic anemia. Methods: It was investigated whether the patients with immune hemolytic anemia who were diagnosed and followed in the hematology outpatient and inpatient clinic of Suleyman Demirel University from 2002 to 2018 had a significant seasonality. We also evaluated whether there was any seasonality relationship between gender and beginning of the hemolytic attacks. Results: There was no significant difference when seasons were grouped as spring, summer, autumn and winter, according to gender (p = 0,122). The evaluation of seasons in two groups as autumn-winter and spring-Summer revealed that male patients tended to suffer immune hemolytic anemia in autumn-winter, whereas females, significantly, tend to contract the disease in spring-Summer (p=0,046). Conclusion: Immune hemolytic anemia had significant seasonality pattern depending on gender. More prospective studies are needed to support these findings in this study