Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia Presenting with Severe Marrow Fibrosis

We report a case of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) presenting with severely fibrotic marrow. There are four other reports of similar cases in the literature. Our patient was treated with All-Transretinoic Acid- (ATRA-) containing induction chemotherapy, followed by consolidation and maintenance therapy. He achieved a complete morphologic remission with adequate count recovery in a timely fashion, and later a molecular remission was documented. The patient remains in molecular remission and demonstrates normal blood counts now more than 4 years after induction. Since the morphological appearance may not be typical and the bone marrow may not yield an aspirate for cytogenetic analysis, awareness of such entity is important to make a correct diagnosis of this potentially curable disease.