TRANSIENT ERYTHROBLASTOPENIA IN CHILDHOOD A Study of 15 Cases

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Abstract
A survey is presented of 15 patients and 35 patients reported in the literature with transient erythroblastopenia of childhood (TEC). The children were hospitalized because of pallor and tiredness, some of them having signs of mild infection. They displayed normochronic anemia, reticulocytopenia and erythroblastopenia during the severe stage of the disease. They also had moderately high values for serum Fe and Fe-binding saturation. No other hematological, chemical or cytogenetic abnormalities could be demonstrated; 80% of the children were between 6 and 48 mo. old and the sexes were equally affected. In the 15 treated patients a barely significant (P = 0.02-0.05) association with blood group A was recorded. Remission, indicated by a rise in the reticulocyte count, begins within a week after the diagnosis is made, even without treatment. The etiology of the disease is unknown. Analysis of the red blood cell population at the time of diagnosis indicates that damage to the red cell precursors has occurred 2-3 mo. before the child is brought for examination.