AUTOIMMUNE HEMOLYTIC ANEMIA AND CANCER.

THE OCCURRENCE of overt hemolytic anemia in malignant diseases other than those involving the reticuloendothelial system is uncommon. Approximately 15 cases of overt hemolytic anemia associated with cancer have been reported in the medical literature. 1-3 The majority of these cases have been associated with metastatic carcinomas of the stomach and breast. Even more uncommon are Coombs' positive hemolytic anemias in malignancies other than leukemias and lymphomas. 4 Only one case of overt hemolytic anemia 5 and no case of Coombs' positive hemolytic anemia have been described with carcinoma of the lung. There seem to be no previously reported cases of overt hemolytic anemia associated with carcinoma of the cervix uteri. The two patients presented in this report had overt hemolytic anemia, which was Coombs' positive, in association with an undifferentiated carcinoma of the bronchus and with a squamous cell carcinoma of the cervical stump. They represent the first reported