MYELOID METAPLASIA IN DISSEMINATED VASCULAR DISEASE

. Myeloid metaplasia has been demonstrated in a patient after the onset of fulminant obliterative thromboangiitis and in another patient prior to the onset of systemic sclerosis. In regard to the former patient it was suggested that the bone marrow failure had resulted from thrombotic obliteration of the nutrient vessels of the bone marrow. The favourable effect of immunosuppressive treatment upon the peripheral circulation, wound-healing and anaemia in this patient suggested an immune pathogenetic mechanism with respect to the vessel damage. In the latter patient no relationship was apparent between the myeloid metaplasia and the systemic sclerosis, which became manifest 10 years later. Impaired extramedullar haematopoiesis and further progress of the osteomyelosclerosis by reason of arterial involvement in the spleen and bone marrow may have contributed to rapid progression of the anaemia during the last months of the patient's life.