Impaired Cellular Resistance to Herpes-Simplex Virus in Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome

THIS familial syndrome of eczema, thrombocytopenia and recurrent infection was described by Wiskott1 in 1937, but it was not until 1954 that Aldrich, Steinberg and Campbell2 defined it as a sex-linked recessive disease. The majority of children afflicted with this baffling disorder have died as a result of overwhelming bacterial infection. Recently, however, visceral invasion by measles virus and cytomegalovirus has been described as an additional microbial complication.3 In our own hospital, within a period of two and a half years, we observed an alarming progression of primary herpetic gingivostomatitis in 3 boys with this syndrome. Two of these patients . . .