Abstract
The bolus methylprednisolone therapy was ineffective for the treatment of our patients of aplastic anemia.
However, the use of anabolic steroid or prednisolone after bolus methylprednisolone therapy, or the concomitant use of anabolic steroid and prednisolone initially from the time of diagnosis, markedly improved the pancytopenia; good and partial responses of 77% and prompt hematological recovery after 3 to 6 months.
The clinical responses to these treatments were not always correlated with the results of the co-culture study in vitro for the immunological suppression of hematopoiesis.
These results suggested that the responses may partly be due to the action of corticosteroid to the microenvironment of the bone marrow as the pre-conditioning of hematopoiesis.
The side effect of these therapies was the impaired glucose tolerance in a small number of patients.
