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:

    “For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.”
    —Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

    “There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.”
    —Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)

    “If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil. That is to say, it will not be the equality of social conditions but rather their inequality which may give rise to it.”
    —Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)