Reversible bone marrow hypoplasia induced by alcohol

A 51-year-old man developed severe pancytopenia with bone marrow hypoplasia after consuming excessive amounts of alcohol for many years. After avoiding alcohol and eating normally for about 10 days, his blood cell counts promptly recovered to near-normal levels. Hematologic remission had lasted for 7 months until he began to drink alcohol excessively again, leading to a relapse of pancytopenia with marrow hypoplasia. His blood cell counts attained near-normal levels again after abstaining from alcohol for about a month. He developed thrombocytopenia following moderate ingestion of alcohol 7 months later, but he never developed severe pancytopenia after limiting alcohol ingestion. When bone marrow mononuclear cells from the patient and normal volunteers were cultured in the presence of ethanol, CFU-GM-derived colony formation of the patient was inhibited by much lower concentrations of ethanol than that of normal volunteers. The clinical course of the patient and the greater sensitivity of the patient's CFU-GM to ethanol toxicities indicate that massive intake of alcohol was responsible for bone marrow hypoplasia observed in this patient.