leukostasis/fever

A case is reported of a 78-year-old woman with a history of chronic leukemia and who developed after emergency appendicectomy a fatal respiratory distress syndrome related to pulmonary leukostasis. Clinically, the patient had fever, dyspnea and severe hypoxaemia. Chest x-ray showed diffuse pulmonary

Pulmonary leukostasis is a rare but serious and often fatal complication of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in blast crisis and acute myeloid leukemia. Treatment options are limited for these patients. Imatinib mesylate (STI-571, Gleevec, Novartis) is a potent and selective inhibitor of the BCR-abl

Four patients with acute nonlymphocytic leukemia and leukocyte counts of more than 200,000/mm3 developed respiratory distress due to pulmonary leukostasis within 10-48 hours after initiation of chemotherapy. Clinically, the patients manifested fever, dyspnea, tachypnea, diffuse pulmonary rales,

Rupture of the spleen can be classified as spontaneous, traumatic, or pathologic. Pathologic rupture has been reported in infectious diseases such as infectious mononucleosis, and hematologic malignancies such as acute and chronic leukemias. Splenomegaly is considered the most relevant factor that

A 6-year-old girl had been ill for a number of weeks, had fever for 5 days and complained of pain below the left costal arch and in the left shoulder, linked to the breathing. An unexplained tachypnoea was also present. The leukocyte differentiation showed 90% blasts; a bone marrow puncture then led

Various acute pulmonary complications may occur in patients with hematologic malignancies because they are in an immunocompromised state due to systemic disease or to chemotherapy or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Pulmonary complications may arise from other treatment regimens, as well, or

The treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with high dose cytosine arabinoside (ara-C) results in short-lived complete response rates of 30-50%. We have previously shown that entry of myeloid leukemic cells into S phase can be accelerated in vitro through the

We report a case of AML with diabetes insipidus (DI). A 68-year-old female was admitted to our hospital because of fever and leukocytosis. The WBC was 197,000/microliter with 98% blasts positive for myeloperoxidase, CD33, CD34 and HLA-DR. While, on admission, urine volume was more than 6 liters

Undiagnosed neoplasms in childhood are rare causes of sudden and unexpected death. Deaths due to undiagnosed hematologic malignancies are limited to a small number of case reports. The following case of acute leukemia was diagnosed at forensic autopsy in a 5-year-old boy with no significant past

A case of acute myeloblastic leukemia associated with multiple intracerebral hematomas is presented. A 19-year-old woman with a two week's history of mild fever suddenly lost consciousness, and was afflicted right severe hemiparesis, left mild hemiparesis and motor aphasia. A CT scan revealed

Differential diagnosis of a focal splenic lesion in the context of acute leukemia is quite challenging. A 58-year-old woman presented with a 3-day history of fever and abdominal pain. The results of hematological work-up were consistent with acute myeloblastic leukemia (M2, French-American-British

Oncologic emergencies can occur at any time during the course of a malignancy, from the presenting symptom to end-stage disease. Although some of these conditions are related to cancer therapy, they are by no means confined to the period of initial diagnosis and active treatment. In the setting of