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:
“The circuited city of the future will not be the huge hunk of concentrated real estate created by the railway. It will take on a totally new meaning under conditions of very rapid movement. It will be an information megalopolis.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“People nowadays have such high hopes of America and the political conditions obtaining there that one might say the desires, at least the secret desires, of all enlightened Europeans are deflected to the west, like our magnetic needles.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“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)