A NOTE ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VITAMIN B,, IN THE TREATMENT OF TROPICAL SPRUE IN RELAPSE

A SHORT time ago, vitamin B,5 was isolated0-5 and shown to have a profound effect on blood regeneration in persons with pernicious anemia, nutritional macrocytic anemia, tropical sprue and nontropical sprue.9 It also was found to be beneficial in relieving the acute and subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord which so often is associated with pernicious anemia.’#{176}’3 However, until very recently the amounts of vitamin B12 available have been so small that investigators have not had sufficient amounts to treat patients fully. We decided to use part of our small supply of this material to make an intensive study of 3 patients with tropical sprue and to treat them over a considerable period of time, the thought being that it would probably take much larger amounts of vitamin B,, to produce full remission than might be apparent from the dramatic hemopoietic response pro-duced by minute doses. These 3 patients, studied in the hospital under controlled conditions, indicate that such is the case. The three following case histories of these patients illustrate their clinical and hemopoietic response to vitamin B,, admin-istered at fairly frequent intervals over a period of from 138 to i6o days