[Clinical and hematologic features of pediatric leukemias]

to present main clinical and hematologic features of pediatric leukemias treated at Hematooncologic department of Pediatric Clinic in Sarajevo during last 7 years.

In retrospective study we followed up children with leukemia aged 0-15 who were treated during period of 01.01.1997-31.12.2003. at Hematooncologic department on Pediatric Clinic in Sarajevo.

A total number of patient with leukemia was 130 of them 112 (83.2%) had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 16 (12.3%) of them had acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and 2 (1.5%) patients had chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). There were 84 (64.6%) boys and 46 (35.4%) girls. Median age of newly diagnosed patients was 6 years and 4 months. Dominant clinical signs were: high temperature-72.9%, fatigue and paleness-74.8% and bone pain-87.9%. Most of the children had leucocitosis (51.5%), anemia (56.1%) and trombocitopenia (57.5%).

Most frequent signs at the beginning of the illness are general symptoms like fatigue, unclear febrile state and accented bone pains. Those united signs with complete blood picture finding should be enough reason for suspicion under possible leukemia.