Anthracycline-induced cardiomyopathy in children: a report of six cases.

Although anthracycline antibiotics are among the most useful chemotherapy agents, the risk of producing cardiomyopathy and the absence of a reliable noninvasive technique to predict subclinical cardiomyopathy remain a major problem. We retrospectively reviewed our experience with anthracyclines over a 5-year period. Cardiomyopathy developed in 6 of 112 patients (5.

Hereditary pyropoikilocytosis and elliptocytosis: clinical, laboratory, and ultrastructural features in infants and children.

Clinical, biochemical and ultrastructural assessment of five Black children from four unrelated kindreds, who had morphologic and laboratory features of hereditary pyropoikilocytosis (HP) is described. In two of the unrelated propositi, both with relatives having elliptocytosis, the apparent HP gradually evolved into elliptocytosis. The mode of inheritance appeared to be autosomal dominant in one family and autosomal recessive in the other.

Phagocytosis of neutrophils by marrow macrophages in childhood chronic benign neutropenia.

Chronic benign neutropenia of childhood is a heterogeneous disorder. This study describes two severely neutropenic children with a benign clinical course and the unique bone marrow finding of macrophage engulfment of band and segmented neutrophils. Phagocytic vacuoles in the majority of macrophages contained neutrophils in various stages of digestion at both the light and electron microscope level (with as many as four neutrophils observed in single macrophages).

The cytosine arabinoside (Ara-C) syndrome.

Four patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and two with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ages 4 and 4 months to 16 years 6 months) exhibited a unique reaction to intravenously administered cytosine arabinoside (Ara-C) given alone as a part of the previously reported LSA2-L2 treatment protocol. The syndrome was characterized by fever, myalgia, bone pain, and occasionally by chest pain, maculopapular rash, and conjunctivitis. Each of the eleven episodes of this syndrome occurred within 6-12 hours of drug infusion and always abated after cessation of Ara-C.