[Therapy-related leukemia with t(8;21) initially diagnosed as MDS (RAEB in T)]

A 64-year-old woman was diagnosed as having myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) at 45 months after receiving radiotherapy for advanced carcinoma of the uterine cervix. We chose low dose therapy of SPAC and ACR because of the diagnosis as therapy-related MDS and the existence of radiation colitis. She obtained minor response, but two months later she transformed to AML (M2). The interval between low dose therapies was getting shorter and shorter, so we tried intensive chemotherapy consisting of BHAC, ACR and 6MP. Blast numbers were reduced, but she died of sepsis and intestinal bleeding. The patients of MDS with t(8;21) and the patients of therapy-related AML (tAML) with t(8;21) are very rare. According to the literature, only karyotype is a prognostic factor in AML/MDS with t(8;21). And diagnosis by the criteria of FAB classification is of little value regarding clinical progress. That is to say, if the patient has only t(8;21) or karyotypic abnormalities which are of little value in prognosis, such as the loss of a sex chromosome, it must be treated as de novo AML, but if patient has karyotypic abnormalities such as -5, 5q-, -7, 7q-, and/or multiple (complicated) abnormalities, we must accept that the prognosis is poor and must treat it as ordinary MDS/tAML.