Seven instances of complete remission, confirmed by bone marrow aspiration, were observed among 202 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and leukolymphosarcoma treated during a 10-year period. Review of these cases and of 10 instances reported by others revealed that complete remission of disseminated lymphoproliferative disease was observed more frequently after x-ray irradiation than after other modalities of treatment and that many remissions followed treatment which might be considered inadequate. The authors conclude that host factors must have played a major role in these cases but that in almost all of them improvement was clearly related to the administration of specific therapy. A characteristic pattern of response was associated with each therapeutic modality and x-ray irradiation produced the most rapid correction of circulating lymphocytosis.
LTHOUGH A COMPLETE CLINICAL AND HEMA-
A tological remission often can be induced in patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia and not infrequently in acute leukemia, this is quite rare in chronic lymphocytic leukemia or lymphosarcoma associated with circulating lymphocytosis and infiltration of the bone marrow (leukolymphosarcoma).13 Clinical remission at times is observed in patients with chronic malignant lymphoproliferative disorders treated with alkylating agents,4. 71 corticosteroidss. 16.27 or irradiation2? 21 but lymphocytic infiltration of the bone marrow and peripheral blood rarely is normalized. We have encountered only 10 well-documented cases in the literature in which complete remission was obtained.5,14-16,25,26 Durant and Finkbeiner have suggested that these cases really had benign lymphoproliferative disease and that remission was "spontaneous" rather than induced by treatment.6
This report describes 6 additional patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or leukolymphosarcoma in whom complete clinical From the Medicine B Service,