An Analysis of Diseases Associated with Eosinophilia In Childhood

Abstract

We analyzed 500 children who had eosinophils comprising more than 6% of the circulating leukocytes in their blood and more than 250 eosinophils per cubic millimeter for the causal diseases of or the conditions associated with eosinophilia. Eosinophilia was mainly observed in patients with drug reactions (lOS cases), allergic diseases (78 caes) or malignant diseases (60 cases). Drug reactions were caused by penicillin analogues (76 cases) or anti-convulsants, especially carbamazepine (29 cases). Allergic diseases included asthma (36 cases), allergic rhinitis (25 cases), brain tumors (8 cases), nonHodgkin's lymphomas (7 cases), Hodgkin's diseases (3 cases), acute myeloblastic leukemia (2 cases) or sarcoma (15 cases). Eosinophils comprising more than 20% of the circulating leukocytes were mainly observed in patients with allergic diseases (38%), malignant disseases (19%) or durg reactions (13%). It can be concluded that eosinophilia in childhood is mainly associated with allergic diseases, malignant diseases or drug reactions, and of these three causes drug reaction is the most frequent one.