Postmortem diagnosis of chronic granulomatous disease: how worthwhile is it?

This article presents a report on the postmortem diagnosis of chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). This report is in the form of a case study. The subject of this study was an 11 year old boy, who was admitted to hospital with right upper lobe pneumonia. He Was prescribed amoxicilin, followed after a week by erythromycin. In spite of aggressive and supportive care he died. The granulomatous inflammation of the lungs, liver and spleen seen on postmortem histopathology. Because of the fulminant disease course no immunological investigations were performed before death. However, 20 percent of the mother's neutrophils had reduced oxidative burst activity, suggesting a carrier state for X linked CGD.