Drug-induced haematological disease.

The taunt about yesterday's remedies was that they were largely ineffectual. Today's treatment is often extremely effective but unfortunately has frequent bad effects, and much of modem therapeutic effort has to be directed at recognising and preventing morbidity from useful drugs. One group of organs that suffers much from drug-induced ills is the blood and the blood-forming tissues. In many haematological textbooks there is a chapter on drug-induced blood diseases. It is unfortunately often true that in the ill effects produced by drugs on the blood, "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." The effects may be predictable or unpredictable, and, indeed, drug-induced blood changes may be the first sign of unnoticed hereditary blood disorder, such as glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency.