European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

BONE MARROW MORPHOLOGY AND CYTOCHEMICAL STAINING IN DIAGNOSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF ACUTE LEUKEMIA

Prof. Dr. Gamal Abdul Hamid* and Dr. Iman Bin Harize

ABSTRACT

Background: Acute leukemia (AL) is serious heterogeneous neoplastic haemopoietic disease. Therefore, parameters are needed to classify this disease into subtypes. The aim of present study is to determine the frequency of various subtypes of acute leukemia using French-American-British (FAB) criteria in our population, and to study the clinical and hematological presentations of acute leukemia. Materials and Methods: This is descriptive study conducted at two Aden governmental hospitals from January 2011 to September 2012. The total numbers of subjects were 53 patients that included both adults and children. History and physical examination, complete blood count, bone marrow aspiration and cytochemistry stains were done for all patients. Results: Fifty three patients were studied (males= 37, females= 16), with male to female ratio 2.3:1. The age ranged between 18 months to 76 years with a mean age of 22 years.Acute Lymphoblast leukemia (ALL) was 58.5%, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) 37.7% and undifferentiated leukemia 3.8%. The predominant subtype of ALL was L1 (51.6%) followed by L2 (45.2%). In AML; M2 (40%) was the predominant subtype followed by M4 (25%) and M5 (20%). Cytochemical analysis of leukemia, when coupled with morphology confirm the diagnosis in (95%) of AML cases and (80%) of ALL cases. Conclusions: The most common type of acute leukemia observed in our study was acute lymphoblast leukemia (ALL) (58.5%), followed by AML 37.7% and undifferentiated leukemia in 3.8% . The AML subtype most common one was myeloblastic leukemia with maturation (M2) (40%).

Keywords: Acute leukemia; FAB classification; Aden hospitals.