Trisomy 13 in a patient with leukemic progression of myelodysplasia

Four months after the diagnosis of refractory anemia, a 60-year-old patient developed acute leukemia with blast cells that were poorly differentiated by morphology and clearly myeloid by immunophenotyping. Cytogenetic analysis performed at leukemization showed trisomy 13. An extra copy of chromosome 13 has already been reported in a few cases of acute leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome.