[Hypoplastic leukemia successfully treated with low-dose aclarubicin: a case report]

Low-dose aclarubicin (LDACR) therapy is one of the differentiation induction therapy, such as low-dose cytosine arabinoside therapy, 1 alpha, 25 dihydroxy-vitamin D3 or retinoic acid therapy, for myelodysplastic syndrome and atypical leukemias. A 36-year-old female with hypoplastic acute myelogenous leukemia was treated with this atypical leukemias. A 36-year-old female with hypoplastic acute myelogenous leukemia was treated with this LDACR therapy. On admission, she was suffered from general fatigue and her peripheral blood smear showed pancytopenia with 23% of myeloblasts. Bone marrow examination revealed a moderately hypoplastic marrow with 35.4% of myeloblasts. She was diagnosed as having hypoplastic acute myelogenous leukemia. Thereafter, 20 mg of aclarubicin was given daily by one-shot intravenous injection for 10 days. After this LDACR therapy, myeloblasts disappeared from her peripheral blood and pancytopenia improved. Bone marrow examination showed increase in nuclear cell counts and she achieved complete remission. In this article, we report the clinical course of this patient and discuss the effect of LDACR therapy as useful chemotherapy for this patient.