ABSTRACT
Fever was a constant feature in 28 subjects with spontaneous mononucleosis due to cytomegalovirus and lasted 15 days or more in almost all cases (26/28). Blood mononucleosis and biochemical hepatic disorders were virtually always present but appeared later, so that the fever was initially thought to be "isolated". Splenomegaly was found in 39.3 p. cent of the cases. Skin rashes developed in 5 patients who had received ampicillin. Non-specific immunological abnormalities were detected in 8 of the 13 patients in whom they were looked for. The diagnosis was established by serological tests, which showed either a significant rise in, or (in patients seen at a late stage of the disease) high, sustained antibodies titers. The virus was found in blood in seven patients among the fourteen in whom it was looked for. We believe that these findings in otherwise healthy subjects could be termed "primary infection". The condition invariably followed a favourable course in the absence of any treatment. Contrary to what is observed in infectious mononucleosis, there was no sore throat and the Paul-Bunnel Davidsohn test always gave negative results.
Subject(s)
Cytomegalovirus Infections , Infectious Mononucleosis/etiology , Adolescent , Adult , Child , Cytomegalovirus Infections/diagnosis , Cytomegalovirus Infections/immunology , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Prospective StudiesABSTRACT
On the basis of eight cases, the authors consider the relationship between sarcoidosis and malignant tumours. The development of a malignant tumour simultaneously or during the years following the onset of sarcoidosis is a rarely seen phenomenon. Only seven cases out of 580 of sarcoidosis were noted in this series. The absence of comparison with control groups of similar age and sex as well as of prolonged observation in a certain number of sarcoidosis patients cured or lost from sight prevents any valid statistical assessment, but the average age (51 years) of the patients at the time of discovery of the tumour is that of the risk of spontaneous development of carcinoma. Thus the association "sarcoidosis-malignant tumour" would appear to be purely a question of chance. The finding of sarcoid-type histopathological reactions in lymph nodes involved in the spread of a malignant tumour often represents the residual expression or reactivated by the tumour of old sarcoidosis which had gone unnoticed. The development of a malignant tumour is capable of provoking in old sarcoidosis patients a late recurrence of the disease.
