No abstract available.
Anemia, Aplastic* ; Preleukemia*

We report two cases of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia presenting with preleukemic phase of pancytopenia with a few abnormal lymphoid cells in bone marrow aspirates. The initial diagnosis of each case was suspicious aplastic anemia and hypoplastic anemia. Both cases progressed to overt acute lymphoblastic leukemia within 1 year. We suggest that initial pancytopenic phase (pre-ALL) may precede the diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in adults and differential diagnosis from myelodysplastic syndrome and primary aplastic anemia will be needed. We also suggest that primary bone marrow lymphoma and "primary unknown metastatic lymphoma of bone marrow" may be possible as the pathogenesis in a case like ours.
Adult ; Anemia, Aplastic/diagnosis ; Bone Marrow/pathology ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Human ; Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Acute, L2/etiology* ; Leukemia, Lymphocytic, Acute, L2/diagnosis ; Male ; Myelodysplastic Syndromes/diagnosis ; Pancytopenia/etiology* ; Pancytopenia/diagnosis ; Preleukemia/etiology* ; Preleukemia/diagnosis

OBJECTIVETo explore prospective diagnostic criteria for preleukemia.

METHODSA case control study was done comparing the discrepancies on clinical and laboratory features between patients with preleukemia and those with chronic aplastic anemia (CAA) or atypical paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglubinuria (a-PNH).

RESULTSThere were eight variables of significance: (1) lymphocytoid micromegakaryocytes in the bone marrow; (2) immature granulocytes in the peripheral blood; (3) > or = 2.0% myeloblasts in the bone marrow; (4) positive periodic acid schiff (PAS) stained nucleated erythrocytes; (5) myeloid differentiation index > or = 1.8; (6) typical colonal karyotypic abnormalities; (7) negative sister chromatid differentiation; (8) cluster/colony ratio of granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming units (CFU-GM) > 4.0. The following criteria were assigned: A: to meet variable one and at least two of the other seven variables and B: to meet at least four of the eight variables. All of the patients with preleukemia met either A or B and none of the patients with CAA or a-PNH did.

CONCLUSIONSPreleukemia is different from CAA or a-PNH. It has its own clinical and laboratory features, which may be useful for its prospective diagnosis.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Apoptosis ; Case-Control Studies ; Chromosome Aberrations ; Female ; Humans ; Immunophenotyping ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Preleukemia ; diagnosis ; genetics ; pathology ; Survival Rate

Myelodysplastic syndrome is a heterogeneous disease complex which is basically a clonal disorder and has characteristics of cytopenia of one or more cell series in peripheral blood and of dyspoiesis of precursors in bone marrow. Since the nature of this disease in childhood is very different from that in adults, retrospective clinical study was performed with 17 confirmed patients who were admitted to the Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University Children's Hospital from June 1986 till October 1992. The results were as follows: 1) Themost frequent occurrence was found in preschool age group (76.5%), and male predominance was noted. 2) Hepatosplenomegaly was the most frequent clinical finding, and in view of laboratory findings, anemia waas found in all cases, and leukopenia in 5 cases, thrombocytopenia in 13cases were observed. Bone marrow aspiration revealed dyspoiesis of 3 cell series in almost all cases. The percentage of myeloblasts more than 5% of total bone marrow nucleated cells was seen in 8 cases on bone marrow study. 3) Subtypes of the disease were found to be 3 cases of RA, 6 cases of RAEB, 3 cases of RAEB-T, 4 cases of JCML, and 1 case of monosomy 7 syndrome. Chromosomal study was performed in 8 cases, and 6 of them were detected to be abnormal. 4) Supportive management was performed for almost all cases, and combined therapy with prednisolone and one-alpha for 3 cases, combined chemotherapy with various anticancer drugs for 7 cases, and low dose cytarabine therapy (10 mg/m2/12 hr) for 6 cases were performed. 5) There were 3 cases of drop out, 8 cases followed up on not remitted state, 5 cases of death, and 2 cases followed up on complete remission state. Two cases in complete remission were one of RA patients, and one of JCML patients, to whom prednisolone with one-alpha, and combined chemotherapy with A-Triple-V regimen were applied as treatment modalities, respectively. 6) Average duration of follow up for 10 survival cases was 18.2 months and a significant difference of 2 year survival rate was found in between the group composed of RA, RAEB and the other group composed of remained subtypes.
Adult ; Anemia ; Anemia, Refractory, with Excess of Blasts ; Bone Marrow ; Child* ; Cytarabine ; Drug Therapy ; Follow-Up Studies ; Granulocyte Precursor Cells ; Humans ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute ; Leukopenia ; Male ; Monosomy ; Myelodysplastic Syndromes* ; Pediatrics ; Prednisolone ; Preleukemia ; Retrospective Studies ; Seoul ; Survival Rate ; Thrombocytopenia