This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Capt. FRANK H. GARDNER, MC

AMA Arch Intern Med. 1956;98(1):44-60.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Introduction

The diagnosis of tropical sprue in Puerto Rico has been defined in the studies of Suarez¹ and Rodriguez-Molina.* Patients with this diagnosis have had macrocytic anemia and megaloblastic bone marrow changes associated with diarrhea, dyspepsia, weakness, and weight loss. They have been treated with liver extract, folic acid, and cyanocobalamin (vitamin B₁₂), with excellent hematologic remission. An explanation for the disease has been attributed to nutritional deficiency, inasmuch as the majority of the patients have been indigent and have had poor dietary habits. The hematologic abnormalities have received major attention, and justly so, in an effort to rehabilitate the patients. However, such interest has emphasized the bone marrow dyspoiesis as the outstanding pathological physiology. This criterion is in striking contrast to sprue as observed in other tropical areas of the world. Anemia was not a prominent observation in the large series of sprue patients that were published . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
U. S. Army

From Tropical Research Medical Laboratory, U. S. Army, San Juan, P. R. Present address: Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication Dec. 5, 1955.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati     What's this?