Comparison of genetic and clinical aspects in patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes all with more than 50% of bone marrow erythropoietic cells

Abstract

Background The World Health Organization separates acute erythroid leukemia (erythropoiesis in ≥50% of nucleated bone marrow cells; ≥20% myeloblasts of non-erythroid cells) from other entities with increased erythropoiesis – acute myeloid leukemia with myelodysplasia-related changes (≥20% myeloblasts of all nucleated cells) or myelodysplastic syndromes – and subdivides acute erythroid leukemia into erythroleukemia and pure erythroid leukemia subtypes. We aimed to investigate the biological/genetic justification for the different categories of myeloid malignancies with increased erythropoiesis (≥50% of bone marrow cells).Design and Methods We investigated 212 patients (aged 18.5–88.4 years) with acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndromes characterized by 50% or more erythropoiesis: 108 had acute myeloid leukemia (77 with acute erythroid leukemia, corresponding to erythroid/myeloid erythroleukemia, 7 with pure erythroid leukemia, 24 with acute myeloid leukemia with myelodysplasia-related changes) and 104 had myelodysplastic syndromes. Morphological and chromosome banding analyses were performed in all cases; subsets of cases were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction and immunophenotyping.Results Unfavorable karyotypes were more frequent in patients with acute myeloid leukemia than in those with myelodysplastic syndromes (42.6% versus 13.5%; P