To the Editor, I am writing this letter concerning the “Clinical Picture in Hematology” entitled “Isolated Zinc Deficiency Causing Severe Microcytosis and Sideroblastic Anemia” by Shweta et al. in a recent issue of this journal [1]. Although we have seen several cases of zinc and iron deficiency with geophagia, hepatosplenomegaly, growth retardation, and hypogonadism (Tayanç-Reimann-Prasad synd...

X-linked sideroblastic anemia (XLSA) is caused by mutations in the erythroid-specific 5-aminolevulinic acid synthase (ALAS2) gene. An elderly woman who presented with an acquired sideroblastic anemia is studied. Molecular analysis revealed that she was heterozygous for a missense mutation in the ALAS2 gene, but she expressed only the mutated gene in reticulocytes. Her 2 daughters and a granddau...

A 5 1/2-yr-old child developed severe anemia with erythroid hypoplasia and 50% ringed sideroblasts in his bone marrow. A serum inhibitor of erythropoiesis was demonstrated, utilizing syngeneic and autologous bone marrow in a plasma-clot culture system. The IgG fraction of the patient's serum effected similar suppression of erythroid colony formation. Prednisone therapy was ineffective, but foll...

Three patients with idiopathic sideroblastic anemia of variable duration developed acute leukemia. In two the leukemia was morphologically and histochemically myeloblastic, in one lymphoblastic. With combination chemotherapy remission was achieved in all three. The remission inductions were complicated by long periods of bone marrow suppression and the duration of remissions was brief (3, 2 and...