Abstract

In 1927 the Swiss paediatrician Guido Fanconi described a family in which three boys had physical birth defects and died of a condition that resembled pernicious anaemia. In the 1960, inspired by Fanconi's theoretical considerations, it was shown that the disorder is based on an underlying chromosomal instability and is associated with a predisposition to bone marrow failure and cancer. As the 80th anniversary of the first description of Fanconi anaemia approaches, we were motivated to pay tribute to Guido Fanconi as an outstanding figure in European medicine and to honour his contribution to cancer research.

Author affiliations

1. Stephan Lobitz is at Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Paediatric Oncology and Haematology, Berlin, Germany.
2. Eunike Velleuer is at the Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Department of Paediatric Oncology, Haematology and Immunology, Düsseldorf, Germany.
3. Both authors contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence to: Stephan Lobitz^1,3 Email: stephan.lobitz@charite.de

Published online 12 October 2006