Biochemical Surrogate Markers Of Hemolysis Do Not Correlate With Directly Measured Erythrocyte Survival In Sickle Cell Anemia

Introduction: Hemolysis has been proposed as a cause of several complications of sickle cell anemia (HbSS), including pulmonary hypertension, priapism, leg ulcers, and stroke. No human study of the role of hemolysis in these complications has directly quantified hemolysis; all used surrogate markers. We applied a recently validated stable isotope glycine red blood cell (RBC) labeling method (Am J Hematol. 2015;90:50-5) to measure RBC survival, a direct measure of the rate of hemolysis, to determine whether commonly used surrogate markers of hemolysis accurately estimate RBC survival in HbSS.