Reye's syndrome without fatty liver.

A 2 1/2-year-old child died after an illness of three days duration, characterized by a sudden onset, vomiting, coma and a striking hyperammonemia. At autopsy, the liver was practically normal. This is a further example of Reye's syndrome with only minimal fatty infiltration of the liver. It appears that the classical massive and diffuse fatty degeneration of the liver is not an essential feature of the syndrome. The evidence for this is discussed.