Abstract
Red cell survival with autologous 51Cr labeled red cells, effective destruction, reticulocyte counts and red cell fragmentation in peripheral blood, haptoglobin, LDH, iron and iron saturation rate in serum, hemosiderin and hemoglobin in urine, cardiac index due to dye dilution test were examined in 27 cases with valvular heart disease and 5 cases with valve replacement, in order to ascertain the existence of vascular hemolysis in these patients due to the abnormality of hemodynamics or the organic changes of endocardium.
In many cases of these patients, high incidence of the shortness of red cell survival, high value of serum LDH, low value of serum haptoglobin, and the existence of urinary hemosiderin were observed. Shortness of red cell survival were relatively slight degree and the relationship between the amount of hemoglobin destruction and the serum LDH values was closely correlated in all cases.
From these results, it is concluded that there are intravascular hemolysis certainly in these patients due to physical damage of red cells but the degree of hemolysis is not so high in them.
