Acute parvovirus B19 infection mimicking juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia

An 11-month-old patient with parvovirus infection mimicking juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is presented. The patient's history, presenting physical and laboratory features, was suggestive of JMML and consisted of fever, hepatosplenomegaly, lymphadenopathy, desquamation of the skin, anemia, leukocytosis with monocytosis and trilineage dysplastic findings of the peripheral blood and bone marrow. However, positive IgM titers for parvovirus B19 followed by seroconversion, negative cytogenetics and the benign follow-up of the patient suggested acute parvovirus infection as an etiologic factor for development of dysplastic features in the patient, and thus is recommended for consideration in the differential diagnosis of MDS. Although parvovirus B19 infection mimicking MDS has previously been shown in two patients with spherocytosis and one with subclinical immune deficiency; to our knowledge, the present report is the first describing the association of acute parvovirus B19 infection with dysplastic features mimicking myelodysplasia (MDS) in a child without a demonstrable underlying hematolymphoid disorder.