Erythroleukemia, with Special Emphasis on the Acute or Incomplete Variety : Report of Five Cases

Five cases of erythroleukemia of the acute or incomplete variety form the basis of this report. Four of the patients were women. The ages of these five patients ranged from 19 to 73 years at time of admission to the Mayo Clinic. Studies were made on the blood and peripheral marrow for varying periods throughout the course of the disease. All five patients had anemia and extreme immaturity of the erythrocytes in the peripheral blood and bone marrow. Leukopenia was eventually present in four cases as was thrombopenia. Splenectomy was performed on one patient.

One patient lived six years after the condition developed, two died within thirteen months of the time of diagnosis, one was not followed, and the fifth was still living at last report.

Relatively few cases of erythroleukemia have been reported in the literature and most of those reported have been cases of the chronic variety. The erythrocytic picture in the chronic variety differs from that in the acute variety. In the acute type acute erythremia is associated with leukemia and in the chronic type polycythemia is associated with it. Either the erythrocytic abnormality or the leukocytic may appear first. Our studies and those reported in the literature suggest excessive activity of the blast cell in two directions.