Haemolysis

Dissolution (destruction) of red blood cells within the organism (intravascular or extravascular). Occurs in the blood (in haemolytic syndromes, crises) and in RES, especially in the spleen (here with storage of the breakdown products) as a result of thermal, mechanical (turbulence, high shear stress, e.g. in heart valve defects, prostheses, in heart-lung machines), osmotic (osmolysis), enzymatic, toxic (haemolysis poisons) or immunological damage to erythrocytes as well as in congenital inferiority of erythrocytes (in enzyme defects) and in haemoglobin abnormalities.