[Laboratory features of acute myelogenous leukemia in elderly patients]

The hematologic features of 103 AML patients older than 60 years(elderly patients) were analysed. Prior to AML a myelodysplastic state was noted in 28% of those patients, 39.3% of patients had a white blood cell count below 3000/microliter, and in 25%, no blast cells were detected in the peripheral blood. Hypoplastic marrows were noted in 25.2%. In regard to the subtypes, M3 was noted less frequently in the elderly patients than in the younger patients. CD34 in blast cells was observed in 53% of patients and dysplastic changes in bone marrow cells other than blast cells were observed in 46% of elderly patients. Chromosomal abnormalities with good and poor prognosis were noted in 3.1% and 25.0% of patients respectively, and the most commonsites for chromosomal abnormalities were chromosomes 5 and 7. MDR1 abnormality was detected more frequently in the elderly patients(68%) than in younger AML patients(38%). We speculated that the laboratory features of the elderly AML patients may be related to the aging of bone marrow and the effects of environmental factors.