- A dictionary of medical eponyms

Letterer-Siwe disease

Related people

Syndrome characterised by proliferation of nonlipid histiocytes in the viscera and bones. Clinical features include a variety of skin lesions, single or multiple eosinophilic granuloma of bone, enlarged lymph nodes, enlarged liver with or without jaundice, splenomegaly, pulmonary infiltration, spiking fever, anaemia, thrombocytopenia, mandibular hyperplasia, gingival inflammation and necrosis with loosening and loss of teeth. Infants and young children are most frequently affected, but an adult form may occur. Etiology unknown.

The chronic disseminated form of this disturbance is entered as Hand-Schüller-Christian disease, under Alfred Hand jr., American paediatrician, 1868-1949.

Bibliography

  • E. Letterer:
    Aleukämische Retikulose. (Ein Beitrag zu den proliferativen Erkrankungen des Retikuloendothelialen Apparates).
    Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Pathologie, 1924, 30: 377-394.
  • S. A. Siwe:
    Die Retikuloendotheliose, ein neues Krankheitsbild unter den Hepatosplenomegalien.
    Zeitschrift für Kinderheilkunde, Berlin; 1933, 55: 212-247.
  • A. F. Abt, E. J. Denenholz:
    Letterer-Siwe’s disease. Splenohepatomegaly associated with widespread hyperplasia of nonlipoid-storing macrophages; discussion of the so-called reticulo-endithelioses.
    American Journal of Diseases of Children, Chicago, 1936, 51: 499-522.

What is an eponym?

An eponym is a word derived from the name of a person, whether real or fictional. A medical eponym is thus any word related to medicine, whose name is derived from a person.

What is Whonamedit?

Whonamedit.com is a biographical dictionary of medical eponyms. It is our ambition to present a complete survey of all medical phenomena named for a person, with a biography of that person.

Disclaimer:

Whonamedit? does not give medical advice.
This survey of medical eponyms and the persons behind them is meant as a general interest site only. No information found here must under any circumstances be used for medical purposes, diagnostically, therapeutically or otherwise. If you, or anybody close to you, is affected, or believe to be affected, by any condition mentioned here: see a doctor.