Acute myeloblastic leukemia after immunodepressive therapy for primary nonmalignant disease

Three patients treated with immunodepressive chemotherapy over a period of 43, 60, 38 months respectively, for primary nonmalignant disease, developed AML after cessation of chemotherapy. During the months preceding the AML outbreak, there were hematologic changes with seemed to reveal a preleukemic state. Our 3 patients, and 8 previously published cases, making a total of 11 patients, developed AML after chemical immunodepression for reasons which were neither hematologic nor neoplastic.