[Hemolytic anemia caused by echinocytosis in liver cirrhosis].

Severe haemolytic anaemia developed in a 34-year-old patient with histologically proven alcoholic liver cirrhosis. While in the blood smear there were only a few acanthocytes, under light-microscopy of EDTA-blood 70% of erythrocytes in the counting chamber were acanthocytes or echinocytes, a finding confirmed under the electromicroscope. It is likely that the echinocytosis and acanthocytosis were the cause of the haemolytic anaemia. Biochemical investigation of the lipid composition of the erythrocyte membrane and of plasma and of the apolipoproteins in plasma revealed a series of changes whose role in haemolysis is discussed.