Here we report the case of a disseminated Aspergillus flavus infection in an adolescent affected by acute lymphoblastic leukaemia at the beginning of first-line chemotherapy. Association of surgery and combination antifungal therapy (high dose liposomal amphotericin B and caspofungin) allowed infection improvement. 18-FDG PET-MRI was used for response-to therapy monitoring.

Nine patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in relapse were treated with a course of cytosine arabinoside followed immediately by a course of L-asparaginase. Eight patients achieved complete remission of their disease. This combination of drugs is sufficiently effective to suggest that further trial is needed. It is possible that the combination has a synergistic effect.

A 37-year-old female developed what appeared to be the typical cutaneous manifestations of urticaria pigmentosa. These preceded the peripheral blood changes of acute null cell lymphoblastic leukaemia and skin biopsy revealed that the cutaneous changes were due to leukaemic infiltration. Chemotherapy resulted in clearance of the rash. The importance of skin biopsy in patients presenting with sus...

Three children, aged 7-10 years, with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia presented with back pain, along with a mild kyphosis. Collapse of the vertebral bodies at multiple levels was shown on imaging. Chemotherapy resulted in pain resolution and spontaneous remodelling of the vertebrae.

Note Amplification of 2p13-16 has frequently been found in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, mediastinal thymic B-cell lymphoma and in some cases of neuroblastoma, ovarian cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, non-small cell lung cancer and synovial sarcoma (Knuutila et al., 1998). Translocations and deletions of region 2p12 were found in acute and chronic lymphocytic leukaemias as well a...

A 13 yr old male with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia who received bilevel positive airway pressure ventilation via a face mask for post-transplant pneumonitis developed subcutaneous emphysema, radiographic evidence of pulmonary interstitial emphysema, pneumomediastinum and 6 h later, right hemiparesis and focal livedo reticularis. This case illustrates that severe barotrauma may complicate nonin...

Systemic lupus erythematosus after acute lymphoblastic leukaemia SIR, Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is associated with an increased risk of neoplasia of the lympho-reticular system, particularly lymphoma [1, 2]. While non-Hodgkin's and Hodgkin's lymphomas are the commonest associated malignancies [3, 4], cases of myeloma [5, 6] and leukaemia [7] have also been documented and there have bee...

Introduction he leukaemias are malignant neoplasms of the haemopoietic stem cells. 1 acute leukaemia is the most common malignancy in children. 2 In the United States the incidence of ALL is roughly 6000 new cases per year (as of 2009), or approximately 1 in 50,000. 3 Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia makes up three quarters of all cases of leukaemia in children and 20% of all cases of leukaemia in...

A child with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, being treated in the UKALL II Trial, had while in remission an attack of measles and made a normal recovery. Four months later she developed an acute encephalopathy and died within two weeks. The brain showed mild inflammatory features and widespread inclusion bodies in neurones and glial cells. Immunofluorescence proved an infection with measles viru...