Common Diseases Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome

  In our surrounding people, we often encounter some cases like this, when they are in their thirties or forties, they do not have hypertension, hyperlipidemia or diabetes, but they suddenly pass away due to cerebral infarction or myocardial infarction; in the middle of the night, they become dark in front of their eyes, and when they go to the ophthalmology clinic the next day, they are blind for unknown reasons; they repeatedly have deep or lower limb venous thrombosis but they never know the cause. What is the cause? Newlyweds, eager to become a husband and mother, always miscarry, deliver prematurely or stillbirth in less than a month, and sometimes even involve the mother in life-threatening severe pregnancy poisoning; the same young people undergo surgery, why some have blood clots, but others are safe?  Recent studies have found that this series of problems may be due to an unfamiliar, but not uncommon disease in real life – antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome is a “new” type of disease that has only been recognized in the last decade or so, and because it is still relatively unknown, the exact number of patients cannot yet be counted. Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome is the cause of 25% of new cerebral infarctions in patients under 45 years of age; 15%-20% of deep vein thrombosis is caused by antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, and antiphospholipid antibody syndrome accounts for 5%-15% of women with habitual abortions.  Due to the lack of awareness and vigilance of this “new” disease and the complex and diverse clinical presentation, patients are often referred to general internal medicine, neurology, vascular surgery, gynecology, respiratory medicine, ophthalmology, hematology and psychiatry departments and are overlooked or missed. It is a group of clinical syndromes caused by phospholipid antibodies and is now a common cause of acquired hypercoagulable states and pregnancy failure in the general population.  Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome is generally divided into primary and secondary, with the cause of primary antiphospholipid antibody syndrome still unknown and secondary mainly seen in rheumatic diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. In addition to the common clinical manifestations of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome such as arterial thrombosis, venous thrombosis, habitual abortion, and thrombocytopenia, some patients also present with lower extremity reticular cyanosis, hemolytic anemia, cardiac valve thickening and nonbacterial flaccidity, chorea, seizures, migraine, and dementia, and laboratory tests show moderate to high titers of antiphospholipid antibodies and positive lupus anticoagulants. In view of the complexity of this disease and the serious consequences caused by the disease, it should attract the attention of clinicians of all disciplines and the community. Currently, antiphospholipid antibody syndrome has become a hot topic of research in rheumatology at home and abroad, and it is recommended to screen for antiphospholipid antibodies in patients with the following clinical manifestations: (1) patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.  (2) Stroke or peripheral arterial thrombosis in patients younger than 50 years of age.  (3) Recurrent recurrent arterial or venous thrombosis.  (4) Thrombosis occurring at an uncommon site (e.g., kidney or adrenal gland).  (5) Recurrent episodes of thrombocytopenia.  (6) Three or more consecutive miscarriages; or one or more unexplained morphologically normal fetal deaths after 10 weeks of gestation; or one or more morphologically normal neonatal births at less than 34 weeks of gestation due to severe pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, or severe placental failure.  In the presence of the above, antiphospholipid antibody testing should be performed, and if moderate or high titers of anti-cardiolipin antibodies are detected, the diagnosis of antiphospholipid antibody syndrome can be considered and requires active measures for treatment.