Saha RN, Selvaraj J, Viswanathan S, Pillai V. Typhoid with pancytopenia: Revisiting a forgotten foe: Two case reports. World J Hematol 2023; 10(1): 9-14 [DOI: 10.5315/wjh.v10.i1.9]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Stalin Viswanathan, MD, Additional Professor, Department of General Medicine, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Dhanvantri Nagar, Gorimedu, Pondicherry 605006, India. stalinviswanathan@ymail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Hematology
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Hematol. Jan 5, 2023; 10(1): 9-14 Published online Jan 5, 2023. doi: 10.5315/wjh.v10.i1.9
Typhoid with pancytopenia: Revisiting a forgotten foe: Two case reports
Rupendra Nath Saha, Jayachandran Selvaraj, Stalin Viswanathan, Vivekanandan Pillai
Rupendra Nath Saha, Jayachandran Selvaraj, Stalin Viswanathan, Vivekanandan Pillai, Department of General Medicine, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry 605006, India
Author contributions: Saha RN contributed to drafting the manuscript; Selvaraj J contributed to images and concept; Viswanathan S contributed to literature review and editing; Pillai V contributed to editing and final approval.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Stalin Viswanathan, MD, Additional Professor, Department of General Medicine, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Dhanvantri Nagar, Gorimedu, Pondicherry 605006, India. stalinviswanathan@ymail.com
Received: August 26, 2022 Peer-review started: August 26, 2022 First decision: September 5, 2022 Revised: September 12, 2022 Accepted: November 29, 2022 Article in press: November 29, 2022 Published online: January 5, 2023 Processing time: 130 Days and 11 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Typhoid fever is a public health problem in Asia and Africa. Pancytopenia has been rarely reported during the 20th century. Reports during the last 20 years are scarce.
CASE SUMMARY
Our first patient was a young adult male presenting with febrile neutropenia whose blood and bone marrow cultures grew Salmonella typhi. He recovered before discharge from the hospital. The second was a primigravida who had an abortion following a febrile illness and was found to have pancytopenia. The Widal test showed high initial titers, and she was presumptively treated for typhoid. Convalescence showed a doubling of Widal titers.
CONCLUSION
Typhoid fever continued to show up as a fever with cytopenia demanding significant effort and time in working up such patients. In developing countries, the liaison with typhoid continues.
Core Tip: Despite the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, typhoid fever remains a cause of acute febrile illness and cytopenia. Typhoid fever can rarely cause pregnancy loss, so acute febrile illnesses in pregnancy should not be neglected. Even with significant improvements in sanitation and water supply, contaminated food remains a problematic source of typhoid fever.
