Remissions in leukemia of childhood following acute infectious disease. Staphylococcus and streptococcus, varicella, and feline panleukopenias

Abstract

C during the past seventy-five years have suggested that Severe infections may on occasion favorably modify the course of far-advanred neoplastic disease.'O-l1 Dock, in 1904, cited sixty-five references on the ameliorative effect of acute infections in patients with leukemia and suggested further clinical studies. Wintrobe and Hasenbush" in 1939 again reviewed the literature and added observations on twenty-nine instances of acute infections in eighty-six patients with chronic leukemia. They concluded that "infections in the great majority of cases did not produce remissions in the physical signs or in the blood picture."