Acute leukemia with erythroid hyperplasia. Our experience on a series of cases with acute myeloid leukemia

Diagnosis of myeloid malignancies with erythroid hyperplasia may sometimes confront hematologists with a mathematical dilemma, if cut-off criteria of blast percentage as proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) 2008 Classification are applied. Several questions have been raised regarding differentiation of acute erythroid leukemia (AEL) from myelodysplastic syndrome with erythroid hyperplasia and some aspects still remain unclear. This paper discusses the differential diagnosis and presents our own experience in a series of patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Although the diagnostic criteria of AEL have been repeatedly refined, it remains a diagnosis primarily based on morphology and on exclusion criteria. Many of the cases designated before 2001 as AEL, actually fit into other disease categories, most often into myelodysplasia related changes - acute myeloid leukemia.