Prognosis

Acquired hemophilia (AH) is a rare autoimmune disorder characterized by bleeding

that occurs in patients with a personal and family history negative for hemorrhages.
Autoimmune disorders occur when the body's immune system mistakenly attacks
healthy cells or tissue. In AH, the body produces antibodies (known as inhibitors)
that attack clotting factors, most often factor VIII. Affected persons develop
complications associated with abnormal, uncontrolled bleeding into the muscles,
skin and soft tissue and during surgery or following trauma.

AH is different from congenital hemophilia, a group of rare genetic disorders caused

by congenital deficiency of certain clotting factors. The main form of hemophilia is
hemophilia A (classic hemophilia), which is an X-linked disorder that mostly affects
males but can also affect females. It is caused by deficiency or inactivation of factor
VIII, the same clotting factor that is affected in most individuals of AH. Although
both disorders involve deficiency of the same clotting factor, the bleeding pattern is
quite different. The reason the bleeding patterns differ between these disorders is
not fully understood.

One of the factors that will tell the clinician that patient has good prognosis are (1)
the age. Usually, patients less than 65 years old has good remission; (2) other
conditions like malignancies would have a poor prognosis; (3) patients response to
immunosuppression; (4) Factor VIII assay is also a good indicator of the severity of
the disease. Symptomatic hemophiliacs usually have levels 5% of normal level.
Disease severity are categorized as severe if the level is less than 1%, moderate if
the level is between1 to 5%, and mild if it is more than 5%.

Ergo, the patient in this case has a poor. Age alone may not suffice the survival of
the patient. There were no other presented variables such as treatment response
and other underlying condition. But the patient manifested a low activated partial
thromboplastin, decreased factoror VIII coagulant activity and increased human
Factor VIII inhibitor. The latter two parameters suggest that there is an ineffective
activity of the the FVIII of the patient. As a result, the patient may suffer from
massive bleeding.