Hemolytic anemia in native valve infective endocarditis: a rare case report and review of literature.

Hemolytic anemia (HA) is not a common presentation in infectious
endocarditis (IE) and has only been reported in very few cases. Although
diseased valves may cause shearing stress that fragments RBCs, similar to that
associated with mechanical heart valves, an autoimmune hemolytic process has
also been implicated. We reported a case of patient who had HA secondary to
acute IE due to MRSA. The anemia completely resolved after treating the (IE) .
The cause was most likely mechanical shearing (schistocytes or fragmented
RBCs present on peripheral smear) by the large vegetation on native valve ;
autoimmune hemolysis was considered unlikely in this case due to consistently negative Coombs tests and failure to respond to corticosteroids.