Spinal cord disease in hereditary spherocytosis: report of two cases with a hypothesized common mechanism for neurologic and red cell abnormalities.

Two unrelated patients with hereditary spherocytosis developed idiopathic spinal cord dysfunction. This coincidence, combined with similar individual case reports in the older European literature, suggests that abnormalities may exist in constituents common to red cell membranes and nerve tissue. A similar conclusion has been proposed to explain red cell membrane abnormalities in some of the muscular dystrophies.