Clinico Hematological Profile of Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia

Background: Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a unique subtype of acute leukemia’s. It has distinct Cytogenetics, clinical features, and biologic characteristics. Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is caused by an arrest of leukocyte differentiation at the promyelocytic stage. The discovery and elucidation of the molecular pathogenesis for APL has led to first and only targeted therapy for leukemia. It is classified as AML M3 by the French-American-British (FAB) system and acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) with translocation between chromosomes 15 and 17, that is t (15; 17) in the World Health Organization (WHO) classification system. A total of 55 cases of APL were diagnosed in the 7 year period. (JAN-2009 to DEC 2015) The majority patients presented with gum bleeding 86.4% with peripheral smear showing pancytopenia (54.5%). Prothrombin time was done on 24 cases, out of which 14 cases (58.3%) showed increased PT values. Immunophenotyping was done in 4 cases showed positive for MPO, CD13, CD33, CD117 and negative for CD 34. Cytogenetics analysis was done in 35 cases showed (15; 17) (q22; q12) PML RARα.