Diagnostic difficulties in acute myeloid leukemia.

We present the case of a patient who presented cells with different morphologic appearance, lymphoblasts on peripheral blood smear, lymphoblasts on bone marrow aspirate and myloblasts on bone marrow biopsy, and immunophenotyping, leading to different stage diagnosis. The final diagnosis was that of acute myeloid leukemia (LAM0).

Sudden blast crisis in a chronic myeloid leukemia patient during imatinib therapy.

Imatinib mesilate (IM) is the first line therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients in chronic phase. Although it offers a complete cytogenetic response (CCyR) in a majority of patients, there still are some rare cases in which a sudden blast crisis (SBC) evolves. The mechanism of this unexpected event is not yet completely understood.

Double transformation of a hematopoietic malignancy and severe associated thrombopathy. Case presentation and review of the literature.

We present the case of a patient with a double transformation during the evolution of chronic hematopoietic malignancy - JAK2 positive chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm; the first transformation had occurred previous to the presentation in our Department, but the second transformation was observed in evolution and it was into a rapidly evolving disease, followed by survival of less than one month. We underline the very poor prognosis -- overall survival of 2.5 years from initial presentation -- a much reduced survival for a chronic myeloproliferative neoplasm, probably due also to multiple associated pathology.

Cryptic genomic abnormalities associated with coexpression of KOR-SA3544 and NG.2 in proB acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Balanced translocations and chromosomal rearrangements are rare events involved in acute lymphoblastic leukemogenesis, yet little is known about the actual gene anomalies responsible for it. These rearrangements are reflected by the expression of certain surface markers such as KOR-SA3544 for t(9,22) and NG.2 for 11q23 rearrangements and may indicate a poor prognosis.

Myeloma cells with asurophilic granules--an unusual morphological variant--case presentation.

We present the case of an 80-year-old man who was admitted for anemia, back pain and progressive weakness. After a workup of clinical and laboratory data, the final diagnosis was multiple myeloma. The bone marrow aspirate revealed 53% myeloma cells with peculiar and rare morphological features: numerous large asurophilic--bright red granules--mucopolizaccharides and immunoglobulins secreted and accumulated in the endoplasmic reticulum, typically known as Russel bodies.