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Robert W. Novak, MD
University of Tennessee Memphis

JAMA. 1981;246(3):215-216.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The report of Foon et al (1980;244:1806) suggesting that remission duration and survival in patients with acute myelogenous leukemia are favorably influenced by the development of posttransfusion hepatitis suffers from oversimplification and conveys an attitude toward hepatitis in leukemic patients that is potentially misleading.

The definition of hepatitis used by the study is the finding of an elevation of SGOT to greater than 50 IU/L on two consecutive occasions. This is inadequate for the definition of post-transfusion hepatitis. No serological or morphological data are present to support their diagnoses. Although the hepatitis is called "posttransfusion," no information concerning components transfused, source of components used, number of transfusions, and relation of time of transfusion and time of onset of SGOT elevation is provided. The patients were receiving potentially hepatotoxic chemotherapy,¹ yet no mention of actual dosage received by patients in each group is supplied. The data presented . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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