Introduction: Acute erythroid leukemia (AEL) is a rare type of acute myeloblastic leukemia. Acute erythroid leukemia is characterized by a predominant erythroid proliferation, there are 2 subtypes: erythroleukemia (erythroid/myeloid leukemia) and pure erythroid leukemia…
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a group of biologically and clinically heterogeneous clonal disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and peripheral cytopenia due to high apoptosis
The purpose to presenting this case is how to differentiate an acute erythroleukemia (AEL) from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).
Case report. A 74-year-old man came to emergency room after he falling down from the stairs and then was hospitalized with a two weeks history of severe weakness, anorexia, weight loss. He suffered of diabetes mellitus type II insulin dependent, and HTA. The physical examination showed cutaneous and conjunctival pallor, large ecchymosis in the low extremities and hepatosplenomegaly. CBC showed: pancytopenia and macrocytosis, neutrophils 60%, normoblasts 4:100 and reticulocyte count 3%.
Conclusions: The diagnosis was Acute Erythroid Leukemia. The % of myeloblasts in bone marrow was > 20% of non-erythroid cells. Erythroleukemia characterizes from hepatomegaly this is found and in our case. Differential diagnosis is based mainly in bone marrow aspiration, immunophenotyping (flow cytometry).