Hemolysis of Red Cells Due to Sulfone

Abstract

Red blood cell survival studies were performed in subjects with dermatitis herpetiformis who received sulfone. It was confirmed that in sufficient dosage sulfones will induce an identical shortening of survival of autogenous and normal donor cells and that this hemolysis was not a random process but was clearly related to cell age. Studies on the pattern of survival of normal red cells transfused into patients receiving long-term sulfones indicate that red cells normally aged are not peculiarly susceptible to lysis in such recipients but that the total red cell population ages more rapidly than normal. A study in which glucose-6-phosphate dehydroganase (G-6-PD)-deficient red cells were transfused into a patient receiving sulfones suggests that the mechanism by which G-6-PD-deficient red cells are affected by sulfones is different from the mechanism by which normal cells are affected.