Tumor Lysis Syndrome in Patients with Hematological Malignancies

Tumor lysis syndrome is a metabolic complication that may follow the initiation of cancer therapy. It commonly occurs in hematological malignant patients particularly non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and acute leukemia due to chemotherapy or spontaneously. It is characterized by a biochemical abnormality such as hyperuricemia, hyperkalemia, hyperphosphatemia, and hypocalcemia and its clinical outcome is directly related to these biochemical abnormalities. Prevention and treatment of tumor lysis syndrome depend on immediate recognition of patients at risk. Therefore, identifying patients at risk and prophylactic measures are important to minimize the clinical consequences of tumor lysis syndrome. Patients with low risk should receive hydration and allopurinol. On the other hand patients with high risk should receive hydration and rasburicase in an inpatient setting. It is important to start therapy immediately, to correct all parameters before cancer treatment, to assess risk level of patients for TLS, and to select treatment options based on the risk level. In this review a comprehensive search of literatures was performed using MEDLINE/PubMed, Hinari, the Cochrane library, and Google Scholar to summarize diagnostic criteria, incidence, predicting factors, prevention, and treatment options for tumor lysis syndrome in patients with hematological malignancies.