Haff disease

Haff dis·ease

(hŏf),

rhabdomyolysis resultant from an unidentified toxin contained in some fish, including turbot and buffalo fish.

[Haff, an arm of the Baltic Sea in East Prussia]

Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

A condition defined as rhabdomyolysis within 24 hours of ingesting fish. It occurred in ‘epidemic’ waves—1924, 1925, 1940—affecting ±1000 people who lived near Königsberg Bay, Lithuania, and was recently reported in the US—all 6 cases had consumed buffalo fish—Ictiobus cyprinellus
Aetiology Ingestion of fish tainted with cellulose-derived toxic resins and/or arsine from paper-processing plants that discharged waste into Haff waters had been postulated; more recently, an unidentified toxins in eels and fish have been blamed

Haff disease

(hăf) [First described in persons living along the Konigsberg Haff, a German inlet of the Baltic Sea]

A rare syndrome of rhabdomyolysis (muscle breakdown) from eating certain kinds of fish. It is believed to result from ingestion of a marine toxin.

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References in periodicals archive ?

Haff disease is a syndrome of painful muscle stiffness and rhabdomyolysis, often accompanied by myoglobinuria, following the consumption of cooked freshwater and brackish water fish.

Since Haff disease is characterized by vomiting and myalgia without fever following mean incubation periods of 8 hours, a heat-stable toxin has always been suspected as the cause.

Internet search engines including Pub Med, Medline, Ovid, Google[R], and Google Scholar[R] were queried with the key words, "Haff disease, seafood poisoning, and rhabdomyolysis", in order to identify all reports of Haff disease in the US with the first two cases reported in 1984 and the last two cases reported in 2014.

Don't be half-educated about Haff disease in Louisiana

Haff disease, first reported along the Baltic coast in 1924, is unexplained rhabdomyolysis in a person who ate fish in the 24 hours before onset of illness (1).

Outbreaks of Haff disease have never been reported in Brazil.

Outbreak of Haff disease in the Brazilian Amazon

A third report concerned Haff disease, which has a case-fatality rate of 1% (9).

Deaths due to unknown foodborne agents

Haff disease is a syndrome of unexplained rhabdomyolysis following consumption of certain types of fish, it is caused by an unidentified toxin.

Editorial Note During the 1920s, the name "Haff disease" was given to an illness characterized by severe muscle pain and stiffness that affected approximately 1000 persons living along the Koenigsberg Haff, a brackish inlet of the Baltic Sea (1).

Haff Disease Associated with Eating Buffalo Fish - United States, 1997

Haff disease, identified in Europe in 1924, is unexplained rhabdomyolysis in a person who ate fish in the 24 hours before onset of illness.

Among these was arsenic poisoning (4), which is still cited in modern medical dictionaries as the cause of Haff disease (5).