Histologic verification of leukemia, myelodysplasia, and multiple myeloma diagnoses in patients in Ukraine, 1987-1998.

In preparation for a possible large epidemiological study of radiation-related leukemia in Chernobyl clean-up workers of Ukraine, histologic evaluation of 62 cases of leukemia and related disorders was conducted by a panel of expert hematologists and hematopathologists from the United States, France, and Ukraine. All cases were randomly selected from a surrogate population of men in the general population of 6 regions of Ukraine who were between the ages of 20 and 60 years in 1986 and were reported to have developed leukemia, myelodysplasia, or multiple myeloma between the years 1987 and 1998. The hematologists and hematopathologists on the panel were in agreement with one another and with the previously reported diagnoses and classifications of about 90% of the cases of acute and chronic leukemia in the study.