Serum lysozyme (muramidase) estimation is a simple, convenient and useful laboratory investigation. A review of the literature shows that lysozyme has been implicated as an aetiological factor in various disorders, and credited with being a prognostic indicator in acute myeloid leukaemia, but these promises have not been fulfilled. This low molecular weight protein is found in the urine of some...

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a blood cancer affecting cells of myeloid lineage. It is characterised by rapid growth of malignant leukocytes that accumulate in the bone marrow and suppress normal haematopoiesis. This systemic disease remains a serious medical burden worldwide. Characterisation of protein antigens specifically expressed by malignant cells, but not by healthy leukocytes, is vi...

The purpose of this overview is to discuss the changes in the 2008 WHO classification of myeloid neoplasms, with exclusion of acute myeloid leukaemia. Specific mutations or rearrangements leading to constitutive activation of growth factor receptors or cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases are now recognised as recurrent genetic events characterising the group of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN). A ne...

OBJECTIVE To determine the clinical and haematological factors associated with treatment and outcome of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) at Kenyatta National Hospital. DESIGN Retrospective survey of patients treated for chronic myeloid leukaemia. SETTING Kenyatta National hospital, Nairobi, Kenya, between April 1990 and August 2000. SUBJECTS Patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia. RESUL...

Quantitative and qualitative abnormalities in marrow lysosomal enzymes, suggestive of acute myeloid leukaemia, were detected in a patient with Sweet's disease and monocytosis 12 months before she presented with acute myelomonocytic leukaemia. Biochemical characterisation of blood and marrow cell extracts may help to identify those patients with Sweet's disease and other preleukaemic conditions ...

Occurrences of second malignancies in hairy cell leukaemia are well recognised. Most of these malignancies are either solid tumours or lymphoproliferative disorders. The association of myeloproliferative disorders with hairy cell leukaemia (HCL) is very rare. This report describes a case of a patient with HCL who after remaining in remission developed Philadelphia chromosome positive chronic my...

AIMS To evaluate the mortality experience of 11 039 workers exposed to formaldehyde for three months or more in three garment plants. The mean time weighted average formaldehyde exposure at the plants in the early 1980s was 0.15 ppm but past exposures may have been substantially higher. METHODS Vital status was updated through 1998, and life table analyses were conducted. RESULTS Mortality ...

A uniform system of classification and nomenclature of the acute leukaemias, at present lacking, should permit more accurate recording of the distribution of cases entered into clinical trials, and could provide a reference standard when newly developed cell-surface markers believed to characterize specific cell types are applied to cases of acute leukaemia. Proposals based on conventional morp...

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a clonal, malignant disease of hematopoietic tissue characterized by accumulation of abnormal cells, mainly leukaemic blasts in bone marrow and impaired production of normal hematopoietic cells. Leukaemia was discovered in 1845, roughly at the same time by two doctors, Rudolph Virchow, a young Berlin pathologist and a Scottish pathologist, John Hughes Bennett. T...

INTRODUCTION The introduction of imatinib mesylate in 1998 has changed the management of chronic myeloid leukaemia. It is now the first-line therapy for newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukaemia patients worldwide. However, its long-term survival benefit still needs to be established in clinical setting among Asian patients. METHODS All chronic myeloid leukaemia patients in the chronic phase ...