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:
“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“As long as fathers rule but do not nurture, as long as mothers nurture but do not rule, the conditions favoring the development of father-daughter incest will prevail.”
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“If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they handle in an incredibly off-hand manner.... Toys are thus the end point in that long chain in which all the conditions of despotic high-handedness are in play which enchain beings one to another, from one species to another—cruel divinities to their sacrificial victims, from masters to slaves, from adults to children, and from children to their objects.”
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