T-acute lymphoblastic leukemia with cytoplasmic granules

✍ Scribed by Tsoi, Wai-Chiu; Lai, Howard D. H.; Feng, Chi-Shun

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 475 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0361-8609
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-8652(199711)56:3<193::aid-ajh13>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

To the Editor: Granular acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a morphological variant of ALL, and is characterized by the presence of prominent azurophilic granules or inclusions in the cytoplasm of the lymphoblasts. The prevalence of granular ALL ranges from 1.7 to 7% of all ALLs, depending on its definition in terms of percentage of blasts possessing granules [1][2][3][4]. Most series showed the predilection of common-ALL phenotype [1][2][3]. The presence of cytoplasmic granules in T-lineage leukemic blasts was rarely described [4,5]. We report here a case of childhood granular T-ALL.

A 7-year-old Chinese boy was admitted into the Department of Pediatrics at Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong with a history of fever and pallor for a month, and subsequent symptoms of bleeding tendency. There was no family history of malignancy or blood disorder. Physical exami-