Signs and Symptoms
Most people with "primary PNH" have red urine at some point in their disease course. Many of them continue to have low-grade breakdown of red blood cells, leading to anemia. Typical symptoms of anemia are tiredness, shortness of breath, and palpitations. On laboratory examination of the urine, breakdown products of red blood cells (hemoglobin and hemosiderin) may be identified. A small proportion of patients report abdominal pain, dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) and odynophagia (pain during swallowing), as well as erectile dysfunction in men - this occurs mainly when the breakdown of red blood cells is rapid.
Forty percent of patients develop thrombosis (a blood clot) at some point in their illness. This is the main cause of severe complications and death in PNH. These may develop in common sites (deep vein thrombosis of the leg veins and resultant pulmonary embolism when these clots break off and enter the lungs), but, in PNH, blood clots may also form in more unusual sites: the hepatic vein (causing Budd-Chiari syndrome), the portal vein of the liver (causing portal vein thrombosis), the superior or inferior mesenteric vein (causing mesenteric ischemia), and veins of the skin. Cerebral venous thrombosis, an uncommon form of stroke, is more common in PNH.
Read more about this topic: Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria
Famous quotes containing the words signs and/or symptoms:
“[Christianity] endeavors equally to establish these two things: that God has set up in the Church visible signs to make himself known to those who should seek him sincerely, and that he has nevertheless so disguised them that he will only be perceived by those who seek him with all their heart.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)