Hematologic abnormalities in children with down syndrome

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Abstract
We compared the hematologis parameters of 18 otherwise healthy children with Down syndrome (DS) in the age range of 2–6 years to those of 18 healthy non-DS controls matched for age and gender. The children with DS had MCVs and hematocrits increased significantly compared to controls and decreased WBCs compared to controls; 66% of the children with DS compared to 11% of non-DS controls had MCVs greater than the 97th percentile for age (P P <0.014). We also found that 33% of the children had WBCs <5% for age compared to 6% of controls. To determine whether folate deficiency contributed to these observations, we measured serum and RBC folate concentrations: these were not significantly different between the 2 groups. We conclude that macrocytosis and leukopenia are common in children with DS.