Intravenous Immunoglobulin in the Treatment of Aplastic Anemia

Aplastic anemia is characterized by reduced production of mature erythrocytes, granulocytes, and platelets from marrow stem cells leading to peripheral blood pancytopenia. In many cases, it appears that there is an aberrant immune response suppressing stem cell differentiation and renewal, leading to bone marrow aplasia and the observed peripheral blood pancytopenia. This report describes a patient with aplastic anemia unresponsive to antithymocyte globulin and high-dose steroid therapy who did respond to intravenous immunoglobulin and now has normal peripheral blood counts.