Histiocytic medullary reticulosis: report of the first case in Jamaica

ABSTRACT

A case of histiocytic medullary reticulosis in an 18-year-old East Indian man is presented. To our knowledge, this is the youngest case to have been reported and the first described in an East Indian. The diagnosis was established at autopsy. The patient presented the typical clinical picture of a rapidly progressive illness of 5 weeks' duration, with fever, wasting, hepatosplenomegaly, lymphadenopathy, and pancytopenia. An intresting hematologic finding, hitherto unreported, was erythrophagocytosis by atypical mononuclear cells in the peripheral blood. The histopathologic picture was charecterized by proliferation of erythrophagocytic histiocytes and thier precursors in the spleen, bone marrow, liver, and lymph nodes. The most severe changes were observed in the spleen and the bone marrow. The affected organs demonstrated iron deposits, most marked in the Kupffer cells of the liver. (AU)