Jan G. Waldenström

Who was Jan G. Waldenström?

Jan Gösta Waldenström was a Swedish doctor of internal medicine, who first described the disease which bears his name, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia.

He was born in Stockholm, and arose from a medical family: his father, Johann Henning Waldenström was a professor of orthopedic surgery in Stockholm, and his grandfather, Johan Anton Waldenström was professor of internal medicine in Uppsala.

Waldenström obtained his M.D. degree at the University of Uppsala, and studied organic chemistry with Hans Fischer at the Technical University of Munich. He was professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Uppsala in 1941, and became professor of practical medicine at the University of Lund in 1944. He was the head of the Department of Medicine at Malmö General Hospital until his retirement in 1972.

Waldenström first described, in 1944, patients suffering from a disease that has subsequently been named for him, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinema, a "hyperviscosity syndrome" in which symptoms are caused by abnormal lymphocytes which prevent normal bone marrow function, causing anemia and hepatosplenomegaly, and which secrete large immunoglobulins, causing bleeding difficulties.