Aplastic anemia, a syndrome of panhematopenia prevailing in children, is due to hematopoietic disorder of bone marrow. The main symptoms include anemia, bleeding and repeated infection, simultaneous decrease in the three types of cells and freedom from enlargement of the liver, spleen and lymph node. The disease pertains to the categories of "xuexu" (blood deficiency), "xulao" (consumptive disease), "xuezheng" (blood syndrome), etc. in TCM.

According to the causes of the disease, aplastic anemia is divided into two types, idiopathic aplastic anemia and secondary aplastic anemia, of which idiopathicaplastic anemia is subdivided into acute aplastic anemia and chronic aplastic anemia in the right of the course and state of the disease. Acute aplastic anemia has urgent onset, short course (averaging about 4 months), unfavourable prognosis, high mortality and death from bleeding and infection within half a year in most cases; chronic aplastic anemia has slow onset, long course (up to 4 to 25 years), fairly good improvement and remission after treatment in most cases and occurrence of death in a few patients. Acute aplastic anemia prevails more in children, accounting for 55% to 70% of all the cases.