Acute Leukemia at King Hussein Medical Center: A Retrospective Review

Objective: To describe certain characteristics of acute leukemia regarding age, gender, cytomorphology and immunophenotype at King Hussein Medical Center. Methods: A retrospective review of bone marrow aspirate and/or biopsy reports was conducted at Princess Iman Research and Laboratory Sciences Center at King Hussein Medical Center during the period between Jan 2004 and Dec 2008. A total of 226 patients were studied regarding: age, gender, and cytomorphologic and immunophenotypic diagnosis. The age was categorized into two groups (≤14 years as children group and >14 years as adult group). Descriptive analysis using frequencies was used to describe the study variables. This study was conducted to study and analyze acute leukemia cases in children and adults in King Hussein Medical Center over the past five years. Results: One hundred thirty-eight (61%) cases were males and 88 (39%) were females. Their ages ranged between three months and 80 years. A total of 102 (45%) patients were children ≤ 14 years old and 124 (55%) patients were > 14 years old. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia constituted 75% of all childhood leukemias, the majority (83%) were of B-cell phenotype mainly CD10+ve Precursor B-cell Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (74%); only 17% of the childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia was of T-cell phenotype. Acute myeloid leukemia constituted 80% of all adult leukemias; most of the cases were of the French-American-British M2 morphological subtype (34%). Conclusion: Distribution and patterns of acute leukemia differs between children and adults. While CD10+ve Precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia was predominant in children, acute myeloid leukemia M2 was prevalent in adults.