Congenital leukemia: report of two cases

Congenital leukemia is a rare disease in which a leukemic process is present at birth or immediately thereafter. The majority of cases presented in the literature were reported prior to the availability of contemporary immunophenotyping methods, and lineage assignment was often made on the basis of morphology alone. Congenital leukemias may be of various lineages, although, historically, monocytic and myelomonocytic congenital leukemias appear to be the most prevalent. We present two cases of congenital leukemia with detailed immunophenotypic and cytochemical characterization. One case is of the lymphoid lineage, and the second is of myelomonocytic lineage. Neither patient displayed trisomy 21.