Remission of hypoplastic acute leukemia by low dose Ara-C: one case report.
The occurrence of hypoplastic acute leukemia is widely recognized as an atypical leukemia, and is defined as hypocellular marrow with more than 30% blasts and none or few blasts in the circulating blood. The pathogenesis of hypoplastic acute leukemia is still unknown. Clinically, it usually follows a less progressive course and has a high prevalence rate among the elderly. The treatment and prognosis remains unclear. We present a case of hypoplastic acute leukemia, which responded well to low dose Ara-C. The 67 year-old female patient had symptoms of bruising easily and dizziness for about 3 years. Initial investigation revealed pancytopenia in the circulating blood and hypocellularity (10%) with blast cells (60%) in the bone marrow. Besides supportive treatment with blood transfusions and antibiotics, chemotherapy of low dose Ara-C 10 mg/m2 was administrated for 14 days by subcutaneous injection. Bone marrow examination revealed an increase of cellularity and a decrease of blast cells following chemotherapy. Anemia and thrombocytopenia also simultaneously improved. Such results may suggest induction of differentiation effect of low dose Ara-C in hypoplastic leukemia.
Wei
S Y
SY
Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical College, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Lin
S F
SF
Chen
T P
TP
Liu
H W
HW
Chang
C S
CS
Lin
T C
TC
D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D003561:Cytarabine / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007938:Leukemia / Q000188:drug therapy*; D012074:Remission Induction
D003561:Cytarabine