Korean J Lab Med.  2003 Feb;23(1):1-5.

Clinical Relevance of Hyperleukocytosis in Patients with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia

• Chae MJ
• Cho D
• Shin JH
• Suh SP
• Ryang DW

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Hyperleukocytic acute myelogenous leukemia (H-AML) is a relatively rare disease found in adults and it should have different characteristics from those of non-hyperleukocytic acute myelogenous leukemia (non-H-AML). We analyzed adult patients with H-AML whose peripheral WBC count was over 100, 000/ L, and compared laboratory and clinical findings of H-AML with those of non-H-AML cases. METHODS: This study included 19 patients with H-AML who were diagnosed between July 1994 and February 2001 at Chonnam University Hospital. The laboratory data, including peripheral blood smear, bone marrow study, immunophenotyping and cytogenetic study, were reviewed and the clinical out-comes of the patients were assessed. The results were compared with those of 127 non-H-AML cases. RESULTS: Of all adult AML cases, 13.1% (19/146) were H-AML. In H-AML, the subtypes were in the order of M5 (36.8%), M4 (21.1%) and M2 (21.1%), while in non-H-AML were in the order of M2 (40.9%), M3 (28.3%) and M4 (11.0%), respectively. HLA-DR and CD14 were more frequent in H-AML than in non-H-AML (83.3% vs. 47.2%, P=0.005; and 23.5% vs. 56.4%, P=0.042; respectively). H-AML had a tendency for low complete remission and short overall survival. Disease-free survival of H-AML was significantly shorter than that for the non-H-AML (6.0 vs 22.1 months, P=0.006). CONCLUSIONS: It suggests that hyperleukocytosis could be a predictor of unfavorable clinical out-comes and survival in acute myelogenous leukemia.

Keyword

Acute myelogenous leukemia; Hyperleukocytosis

MeSH Terms

Adult
Bone Marrow
Cytogenetics
Disease-Free Survival
HLA-DR Antigens
Humans
Immunophenotyping
Jeollanam-do
Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute*
Rare Diseases
HLA-DR Antigens