Haemolytic Anaemias in Children — Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

Haemolytic Anaemias in Children in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Her father lost his as a teenager
2. One test, not a panel
3. What happens around the operation
4. What he takes between reviews
5. Pain up to the shoulder tip
6. Paler but less yellow
7. The assay came back reassuring
8. What the family must avoid
9. A piece taken out of the cell
10. Well until five days ago
11. Deciding what to start
12. Blue fingers in the cold
13. Six months after the first episode
14. The laboratory is on the phone
15. Before chasing a cause
16. One clear, one dark
17. A film with nothing on it
18. Ulcers and a rash for a year

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Hereditary spherocytosis, He needs vaccination beforehand, after, An aplastic crisis, A hyperhaemolytic crisis, in, It confirms a carrier state, in, A red cell enzyme assay, Rituximab, Evans syndrome, in, Perform an urgent exchange transfusion, The first child has rhabdomyolysis, Alpha thalassaemia trait, Test for a red cell enzyme deficiency.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• One of the very few conditions that raises the cell haemoglobin concentration. Notice that index.
• The dye test has replaced the salt test. And the antiglobulin test comes first, always.
• Removing the spleen fixes the anaemia and creates a lifelong infection risk. Both facts go to the family.
• Folate yes, iron never. The iron from a broken red cell does not leave the body.
• Every child with chronic haemolysis is growing gallstones. Look for them on the annual scan.
• Less yellow and more pale is the tell. Destruction has not risen; production has stopped.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all Haematology case decks · pediatric reference values.