[Hematopoietic failure of a healthy child with human parvovirus B19 infection--studies on the hematopoiesis].
An 8 year-old boy, who had been healthy since his birth, presented fever, ecchymosis and nasal bleeding. His peripheral blood picture showed pancytopenia and bone marrow showed erythroblastopenia, but these findings recovered spontaneously in two weeks. The diagnosis of human parvovirus B19 (HPVB19) infection was made by the presence of anti HPVB19 IgM antibodies in the sera. In order to investigate the mechanisms of erythroblastopenia and pancytopenia, we performed in vitro hematopoietic cell culture in both acute phase and the convalescent phase (3 months after the onset). In the acute phase, the formation of CFU-E colony was inhibited but that of BFU-E, CFU-G, GEMM colony was not inhibited. Unexpectedly, HPVB19 DNA was detected in CFU-GEMM colony cells with the PCR technique. It is suggested that HPVB19 infected not only to erythroid progenitor cells but also to other progenitors.