Diagnosis and treatment of the immune hemolytic anemias.

Immune hemolytic anemia can be treated by blood transfusion, steroids, cytotoxic drugs, plasmapheresis, and splenectomy. However, the benefits of therapy are dependent upon the relationship of treatment to the etiology of disease. Thus, effective therapy requires sufficient diagnostic precision to distinguish between allogeneic and autologous antibodies, recognize the etiologic role of immunogenic drugs, and define the immunoglobulin classes of both cold and warm reactive autoantibodies along with their complement interactions.