TORCH Complex - Conditions

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:

  1. T – Toxoplasmosis / Toxoplasma gondii
  2. O – Other infections (see below)
  3. R – Rubella
  4. C – Cytomegalovirus
  5. 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:

    “What is Americanism? Every one has a different answer. Some people say it is never to submit to the dictation of a King. Others say Americanism is the pride of liberty and the defence of an insult to the flag with their gore. When some half-developed person tramples on that flag, we should be ready to pour out the blood of the nation, they say. But do we not sit in silence when that flag waves over living conditions which should be an insult to all patriotism?”
    —Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)

    “Statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, much legislation is moral legislation because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres of life.”
    —George F. Will (b. 1941)

    “Purity is not imposed upon us as though it were a kind of punishment, it is one of those mysterious but obvious conditions of that supernatural knowledge of ourselves in the Divine, which we speak of as faith. Impurity does not destroy this knowledge, it slays our need for it.”
    —Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)