[On an unusual case of hypoplastic anaemia (author's transl)]

The authors describe an unusual case of hypoplastic anaemia. The condition developed shortly after birth as a typical case of Josephs-Blackfan Diamond and was favourably influenced only by a combined treatment with Prednison and Dianabol. The improvement, however, did not last long and after shorter or longer periods of time anaemia recurred again. Applying the same therapy the authors succeeded, despite the sometimes grave condition of the child, not only to save his life but also to normalize the erythrocyte count. It must be noted that the child showed viability for a long period of time no matter how pronounced the anaemia was. Thus, therapy was not necessary to be repeated often. Of special interest for this case were bone marrow examinations. During the first year of the child's life only 1 to 4 erythroblasts were seen the examination was performed several times. After the sixth year the bone marrow contained many erythroblasts although the type of anaemia remained unchanged. According to the authors this peculiarity could be explained only as a transition from a hypoplastic into a pseudohypoplastic anaemia.