[Acute myeloid leukemia originating from the same leukemia clone after the complete remission of acute lymphoid...

A 22-year-old female was diagnosed as having acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) in February 1995, from the findings of peroxidase negative, CD10+, CD19+, TdT+ and rearrangement of IgH and TCR beta. AdVP (doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisolone) therapy achieved a complete remission (CR). Bone marrow transplantation had to be abandoned because of the lack of an HLA-identical donor. Intensification therapy was thus carried out repeatedly. In June 1998, myeloblast with Auer rods, peroxidase positive, CD13+, CD33+ and HLA-DR+, appeared. The patient was diagnosed as having lineage switch acute myeloid leukemia (AML) from ALL. Though A-DMP (cytosine arabinoside, daunorubicin, 6-mercaptopurine) therapy was resistant, AdVP therapy led to a CR. The patient died of cardiotoxicity from anthracyclines in February 1999. From the results of the Ramasamy method using the clonal rearrangements of the Ig heavy chain gene locus, the origin of the pathological cells of ALL and AML was indicated to be the same leukemia clone.