Parvovirus B19 infection reminiscent of myelodysplastic syndrome in three children with chronic hemolytic anemia

The authors have seen transient pancytopenia with erythroid hypoplasia and striking trilineage myelodysplasia reminiscent of true myelodysplastic synd rome (MDS) in 3 children, 1 with thalassemia intermedia and the other 2 wit h previously undiagnosed hereditary spherocytosis. In these 3 children tran sient pancytopenia and myelodysplasia coincided with serological evidence o f acute parvovirus-B19 (PV-B19) infection, strongly suggesting their releva nce. It is of interest that these 3 cases were encountered within a period of 6 months. This might be an incidental event, but it might also be conclu ded that acute PV-B19 infection associated transient pancytopenia with morp hological appearance of MDS may occur more frequently than reported in the literature. So, PV-B19-associated nonclonal MDS should be considered in the differential diagnosis of true clonal MDS.