Chronic Toxoplasmosis Associated With Severe Hemolytic Anemia

Abstract

The first description of human toxoplasmosis has been credited¹to Janku, who in 1923 described an infant who had chorioretinitis and hydrocephalus. Pinkerton and Weinman²described in 1940 the first adult patient with toxoplasmosis recorded in the United States. Since then an increasing number of cases of toxoplasmosis in infants, juveniles, and adults have been added to the literature. Acquired toxoplasmosis in the adult presents most often with lymphadenopathy and pursues a self-limited course with eventual recovery.¹Few examples of acquired toxoplasmosis with a fatal outcome in adults have been reported in the last two decades. A case of chronic toxoplasmosis in an adult, whose clinical manifestations were those of a severe hemolytic anemia, was recently encountered at postmortem examination. The hematologic complications of acquired toxoplasmosis, in contrast to those of congenital toxoplasmosis, are not well recognized, and a relationship of this infection to anemia and bone