The following are the most important diseases or complications that may be contributed to by polycythemia:
Eyes and eye appendages (H00-H59).
- Visual disturbances, unspecified
Blood, hematopoietic organs – immune system (D50-D90).
- Hemorrhagic diathesis (increased bleeding tendency).
- Splenomegaly (enlargement of the spleen)
Endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases (E00-E90).
- Hyperuricemia
Cardiovascular system (I00-I99)
- Apoplexy (stroke)
- Budd-Chiari syndrome – thrombotic occlusion of the hepatic veins.
- Claudication – intermittent claudication; symptom of arterial occlusive disease.
- Erythromelalgia (EM; erythro = red, melos = limb, algos = pain) – acral circulatory disorder characterized by seizure-like redness and overheating of the skin on the extremities (hands/feet) associated with burning pain; vasodilation (dilation of blood vessels) provokes the overheating of the skin and painful redness here; disease is very rare
- Finger ischemia – circulatory disorders of the fingers.
- Hypertension (high blood pressure)
- Pulmonary embolism – detachment of a blood clot from a thrombosis, which leads to occlusion of pulmonary vessels.
- Myocardial infarction (heart attack)
- Thrombosis (vascular disease in which a blood clot (thrombus) forms in a vessel) or thromboembolism.
Liver, gallbladder, and bile ducts-pancreas (pancreas) (K70-K77; K80-K87).
- Hepatomegaly (enlargement of the liver).
Mouth, esophagus (esophagus), stomach, and intestines (K00-K67; K90-K93).
- Gastrointestinal ulceration (ulcers).
Musculoskeletal system (M00-M99)
- Gout (arthritis urica/uric acid-related joint inflammation or tophic gout)/hyperuricemia (elevation of uric acid levels in the blood).
Neoplasms – tumor diseases (C00-D48).
- Acute leukemia (blood cancer)
- Osteomyelofibrosis – disease belonging to the myeloproliferative syndrome, in which comes to the increasing connective tissue remodeling of the bone marrow.
Psyche – nervous system (F00-F99; G00-G99)
- Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
Symptoms and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings not elsewhere classified (R00-R99).
- Hyperviscosity syndrome (→ arterial or venous thromboembolic complications); incidence: approximately 20-40%.
- Pruritus (itching) – usually caused by water contact.
Genitourinary system (kidneys, urinary tract – reproductive organs) (N00-N99).
- Nephrolithiasis (kidney stones).
- Priapism – erection lasting > 4 h without sexual stimulation; 95% of cases ischemic or low-flow priapism (LFP), which is very painful; LFP can lead to irreversible erectile dysfunction after only 4 h; therapy: blood aspiration and possibly intracavernosal (i.c.) sympathomimetic injection; “high-flow” priapism (HFP) requires no immediate measures
Prognostic factors
- Hematocrit (Hk; = volume fraction of cellular elements in blood; since erythrocytes (red blood cells) physiologically represent 99% of the total volume of blood cells, Hkt corresponds to the fraction of the volume of all erythrocytes in the total blood [%]).
