Usefulness of Eosin-5’-Maleimide (EMA) Dye for the Diagnosis of Hereditary Spherocytosis

Abstract

Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is a common congenital hemolytic anemia. The typical laboratory hallmark of HS is the presence of spherocytes in peripheral blood film. HS is characterized by minimal or no anemia, an increased mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), spherocytes on the peripheral blood smear and abnormal results on the osmotic fragility test (OFT). While OFT has long been considered the gold standard for diagnosing of HS, this test requires a large volume of blood and an incubation period of 24 hours and it lack specificity for diagnosis of HS.