Abstract
By careful examinations on 219 cases of out-or in-patients with anemia in the clinic, the author obtained the classification of anemias shown in Table 1.19 of the cases were of no clear cause, and they belonged to the anemia type which was classified as macrocytic non-megaloblastic anemia. Prof. Matunaga named this anemia type X-anemia.
Systematic blood examinations of this X-anemia and experimental studies on deficiency of vitamin B2-group with rats were made for the genetic analysis from the resulting blood pictures. The pictures of the obtained peripheral blood and bone marrow and clinical data are shown in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5. Table 6 shows the diet formula of vitamin B2-group deficiency for the animal experiments. The experimental data are shown in Table 7.
The results obtained in the clinical and experimental studies are as follows:
1. X-anemia is mostly encountered in women but has no direct relation to pregnancy.
2. Signs and symptoms are mainly due to gastrointestinal disorder. As contrasted with pernicious anemia, however, gastric juice is not achylic as a rule.
3. The blood picture shows a macrocytic and hyperchromic anemia, and in the bone marrow no megaloblast appears but macroblast increases markedly in number.
4 Judging from the experimental results with rats, B2-group deficiency does not seem to be the cause of the anemia.
5. Using iron, cupric perparates, folic acid, vitamin B12 or liver preparates or by transplantation of the anterior lobe of pituitary gland, the author has proved no effect in reducing the anemia. Blood transfusion is the only treatment effective.
6. Although the prognosis of this anemic condition has no direct relation to life span, the clinical condition deteriorates progressively though slowly.
7. It has not been determined conclusively whether this anemia type is morbus sui generis or a syndrome due to other diseases. Mal-nutrition in a broad sense may, however, be one of the causes of the anemia.
The author's presumption is that this X-anemia is due to the insufficient absorption of an unknown anti-anemic factor from the digestive tract because of its functional disorder. If the presumption be true the anti-anemic factor should be entirely different from the extrinsic factor in pernicious anemia.
8. The author terms this X-anemia type “benign, normoaciditic, macrocytic. hyperchromic, and non-megaloblastic anemia.”
