HELLP Syndrome: Hemolysis, Elevated Liver Enzymes, and Low Platelets
- John H. Stone, MD, MPH
- From the Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- blood platelets
- grand rounds at the johns hopkins hospital (hellman db, schlott dw, sisson sd, cooper ds, eds)
- hellp syndrome
- hemolysis
- pregnancy complications, cardiovascular
CASE PRESENTATION
DR STONE: Mrs N is a 32-year-old businesswoman from California. I became familiar with her case 2½ years ago when I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, and she presented to her local physician with right-upper–quadrant pain. She has graciously agreed to join us at Hopkins today for Grand Rounds.
Mrs N, was the right-upper–quadrant pain the first symptom of your illness?
PATIENT: No. For 2 or 3 weeks before that, I had noticed some swelling around my eyes and over my brow bone. My eyes looked puffy. On Friday, the day before the pain started, my husband and I went away for the weekend. During the 2-hour drive, I realized that my ankles were swollen. To relieve the swelling, I put my feet up on the dashboard of the car. After about 30 minutes, the definition of my ankles had returned but my knees …
