Aplastic Anemia and Its Association With Hemochromatosis

Although hemochromatosis is a comparatively rare condition, its association with aplastic anemia is frequent enough to suggest that the combination of the two diseases is more than accidental. The purpose of this paper is to draw further attention to this association by reviewing the reported cases, adding another case and discussing the pathologic changes common to the two conditions. Whitby and Britton1stated that about 150 cases of idiopathic aplastic anemia are recorded in the literature on medicine. Thompson, Richter and Edsall2and later Rhoads and Miller3drew attention to the discrepancy between the peripheral blood and the bone marrow and to the frequent occurrence of cellular and even hypercellular marrow when the elements in the peripheral blood were reduced in numbers. Rosenthal4distinguished between two forms of aplastic anemia, the typical and the atypical. The atypical form includes the chronic type of aplastic anemia with