[The Hellp syndrome: is this a clinical form of thrombotic microangiopathy?].

There are similarities between the clinical, biological and histological features of thrombotic micro-angiopathy (TMA) when it is a complication of pregnancy and the "Help Syndrome" (HS). HS can be associated in pregnancy with pre-eclampsia, thrombocytopenia, micro-angiopathic haemolysis and hepatic cytolysis. We have analysed on the one hand biological features of six cases that occurred in the literature and two personal cases of thrombotic micro-angiopathy that had been proven histologically; and on the other hand the histological findings of the liver in two cases of the literature and in a personal case of HS. Demonstration that in HS deposits exist under the endothelium in the region of the hepatic biopsy suggest that the latter can only be a special clinical form of TMA.