Conditions
The TORCH complex was originally considered to consist of four conditions, with the "TO" referring to "Toxoplasma". The four-term form is still used in many modern references, and the capitalization "ToRCH" is sometimes used in these contexts.
Alternatively, the "O" is redefined as "other", and the acronym is spelled out as follows:
- T – Toxoplasmosis / Toxoplasma gondii
- O – Other infections (see below)
- R – Rubella
- C – Cytomegalovirus
- H – Herpes simplex virus-2
The "other agents" included under O are Coxsackievirus, Syphilis, Varicella-Zoster Virus, HIV, and Parvovirus B19.
Hepatitis B may also be included among "other agents", but the hepatitis B virus is a large virus and does not cross the placenta, hence it cannot infect the fetus unless there have been breaks in the maternal-fetal barrier, such as can occur in bleeding during childbirth or amniocentesis.
The acronym has also been listed as TORCHES, for TOxoplasmosis, Rubella, Cytomegalovirus, HErpes simplex, Syphilis.
Read more about this topic: TORCH Complex
Famous quotes containing the word conditions:
“A society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice. The stress is in our civilization.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Among the laws controlling human societies there is one more precise and clearer, it seems to me, than all the others. If men are to remain civilized or to become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed as equality of conditions spreads.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)