The relation between hypocholesterolemia and degree of maturation in acute myeloid leukemia

Plasma cholesterol concentrations were determined in 83 acute myeloid leukemia patients. Mean plasma cholesterol concentration (+/- S.D.) at the time of diagnosis was 2.91 mmol/L (+/- 1.13). The percentage of AML patients having hypocholesterolemia was 90.4 per cent. The lowest cholesterol levels were observed in the poorly differentiated FAB subtypes of acute myeloid leukaemia: AMyL(M1) and AMoL(M5a). The results showed that the initial hypocholesterolemia in acute myeloid leukemia is significantly related to the degree of both cytological and cytochemical maturation of leukemic blast cells at diagnosis. The degree of maturation at diagnosis has been shown to be related to prognosis in favour of more differentiated subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia. Also, hypocholesterolemia has been shown in several epidemiological studies to be related to an increased mortality from human cancer. Therefore, the degree of maturation may serve as a link between hypocholesterolemia and the increased mortality from human cancer.