Juvenile Congenital Pernicious Anemia

JUVENILE "congenital" pernicious anemia is characterized by vitamin B12 deficiency appearing in early life as the result of a congenital lack of gastric intrinsic factor with no other apparent abnormality of the stomach or its secretions. This is in contrast to the far more frequent adult form of pernicious anemia, in which achlorhydria and gastric atrophy are uniformly present. Furthermore, serum antibodies to intrinsic factor and gastric parietal cells, commonly detected in the adult syndrome, are conspicuously absent in the patients with juvenile "congenital" pernicious anemia.1 , 2 The juvenile "congenital" form resembles the adult form, however, in that the defective . . .