A phenacetin-neutralizing antibody was discovered in the serum of a 61-year-old woman with autoimmune hemolytic anemia. The patient had been a chronic ingestor of phenacetin. In vitro studies indicated that the phenacetinneutralizing antibody cross-reacted with a panagglutinin on the patient’s erythrocytes and that phenacetin could competitively inhibit this reaction. Interaction of two autoantibodies must be a very rare occurrence. In this case, it seems most likely that the altered immune state developed and then the patient produced the phenacetin antibody and the cross-reacting erythrocyte-bound antibody.
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Hart et al. (1969) studied this question.