INFARCTION OF THE LIVER AND HYPOPROTHROMBINEMIA

Abstract

There are several reports in the literature of infarction of the liver associated with hypoprothrombinemia, hemorrhagic manifestations and failure to respond to vitamin K therapy. All the patients have been adults. In 1930, Zimmerman described an instance of infarction of the liver in a newborn infant who died of traumatic intracranial injuries thirty-one hours after birth. No other hemorrhagic manifestations were noted clinically or at necropsy. Since studies of prothrombin were not performed, the relationship of cerebral hemorrhage to hypoprothrombinemia, so strongly stressed in recent literature, was not established in this instance. 1 We are reporting herein for the first time such an association of conditions in an infant, a newborn baby who during its six days of life exhibited severe hemorrhagic manifestations, hypoprothrombinemia and failure to respond to presumably adequate therapeutic dosages of vitamin K. At necropsy an extensive infarction of the liver was found. REPORT OF A CASE