Leukemic blasts from patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) frequently express high levels of the interleukin-3 receptor alpha chain (IL-3Ralpha). In the present study, we have explored the sensitivity of primary leukemic blasts obtained from 34 patients with AML to a diphtheria toxin (DT) composed of the catalytic and translocation domains of DT (DT388) fused to IL-3 (DT388IL-3) and to DT3...

A 28-year-old female presented with chills, sweats, and profound weakness. Laboratory findings revealed hypercalcemia, elevated lactate dehydrogenase, and pancytopenia. Bone marrow aspirate revealed 95% blasts with 2 distinct populations. A subset of blasts (20%) had typical morphology with smallto medium-sized nuclei, relatively regular nuclear outlines, and scant cytoplasm; however, the major...

Anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG), a horse antiserum to human thymus tissue, has been shown to induce granulocytic differentiation of the III60 human leukemia cell line. In this paper we describe the effect of ATG on leukemic blasts and its effect on other human leukemia cell lines in vitro. The in vitro differentiation effect of ATG was observed in blasts from two patients with leukemia and the hu...

57-year-old man was admitted to our Institute with a two-week history fever up to 39°C, hepatomegaly and splenomegaly. Hematological findings were as follows: Hb 8.8 g/dL, platelet count 193310/L, WBC 54310/L with neutrophils 12%, lymphocytes 8%, blasts 80%, nucleated red blood cells 65/100 WBC. The immunological studies carried out by flow cytometry showed that circulating blasts were CD2, CD7...

Patients suffering from adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia are acutely ill and present most commonly with fever, pallor, bleeding, lymphadenopathy, hepatosplenomegaly and presence of lymphoblasts in the peripheral blood and bone marrow. We describe a rare presentation of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, in a young adult male who had vague and minimal symptoms with mild splenomegaly. There was seve...

Erythroleukemia is an uncommon disorder in children. Four cases of pediatric erythroleukemia, diagnosed over a period of nine years are presented. The patients presented with pallor, fever and hepatosplenomegaly of recent onset. Peripheral smear examination showed anemia, thrombocytopenia and circulating blasts. The bone marrow displayed erythroid hyperplasia with dysplasia and PAS positive ery...

Azurophilic granulation of blasts is a feature of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Granular acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) may mimic AML due to the presence of cytoplasmic granules in lymphoblasts, but cytochemistry and immunophenotyping are helpful in making the correct diagnosis. Toluidine blue (TB) is a metachromatic dye, which stains basophils and myeloid blasts that exhibit basophilic dif...

Lymphocytoid and plasmacytoid blasts have been identified in both normal and chronic lymphocytic leukemia lymphocyte cultures exposed to NaIO4. However, the appearance of ultrastructurally abnormal blasts in chronic lymphocytic leukemia cultures suggests that NaIO4 also stimulates the transformation of an abnormal subpopulation of lymphocytes. Development of invaginated nuclei produced morpholo...