Inesa Navickaite¹, Kristina Drulyte¹, Dovile Dovidaitiene²

 

¹Medical academy, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania,

²Cardiovascular center, Republican Siauliai Hospital, Siauliai, Lithuania

ABSTRACT

The antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an autoimmune disease in which patients have vascular thrombosis and/or pregnancy complications. As with most autoimmune conditions, the etiopathogenesis of APS is not fully understood. Diagnosis and management should be discussed, more clinical evidence is needed. There is a number of hypotheses for pathogenic mechanisms in APS. In recent data specific conformational changes of antiphospholipid antibodies (APA) are believed to be a principle pathogenic mechanism of APS. Diagnosis is based on The Sapporo classification criteria for APS which were updated at the Eleventh International Congress on Antiphospholipid Antibodies in Sydney in 2006. The major changes made in the 2006 revision were that anti-β2GPI antibody and serum Lupus anticoagulant was included for the first time. This updated Sydney classification scheme is valuable for an evaluation of disease, it shows correlation between clinical manifestations and pathogenic mechanisms.

This article presents a clinical case of 56 years old woman who has an APS. Doctors from Republican Siauliai hospital Cardiovascular center and Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics Cardiology department were working together to manage this disease. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to evaluate new diagnostic and treatment of antiphospholipid syndrome recommendations and using this case report as an example to improve an understanding of this rare autoimmune disease.

Keywords: Antiphospholipid syndrome; Antiphospholipid antibodies; Autoimmunisation; Thrombosis.