Pearson's marrow-pancreas syndrome in 2 Turkish children.

Two unrelated infants, 1 female and 1 male, with Pearson's syndrome are presented. Both patients presented with severe macrocytic refractory anemia starting early in infancy. Investigation of the mitochondrial (mt), DNA showed that one of the patients had a 4,977 bp deletion, and the other had a 4.5 kb mtDNA deletion. It is concluded that Pearson's syndrome should be borne in mind in the differential diagnosis of refractory anemia especially when there are accompanying gastrointestinal disturbances and metabolic acidosis.