[Parvovirus B19: importance of diathesis in the clinical expression of a common infection]

Symptomatic manifestations of parvovirus B19 infection range from harmless conditions such as 5th disease of the child or arthropathy of the middle-aged woman to life threatening disease such as transient aplastic crisis during sickle cell disease, chronic anaemia in immunodeficiency states or hydrops foetalis during pregnancy. Increasing knowledge of parvovirus B19 has led to a better understanding about how a single and unvariant erythrovirus causes such a variety of diseases. The importance of age, hematopoietic and immune status has been raised and besides, effective diagnostic assays, treatments and possibly vaccine have been developed that can be rationally used at the light of this knowledge.