HAEMATOLOGICAL MANIFESTATIONS AND FREQUENCY OF FAB SUBTYPES IN PATIENTS OF ACUTE MYELOID LEUKAEMIA: A SINGLE CENTER STUDY

Fab Subtypes in AML

Abstract

Objective: To determine the clinical/haematological manifestations and frequency of different subtypes of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) according to the French-American-British (FAB) classification.

Study Design: Descriptive study.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was carried out at haematology department of Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), Rawalpindi from January 2011 to September 2012.

Material and Methods: Retrospective review of documents of patient diagnosed to have acute myeloid leukaemia on bone marrow aspiration was done. Patient’s age, gender, major signs and symptoms at time of presentation and haematological parameters of peripheral blood and bone marrow were noted. The subtype of AML according to FAB classification was also documented. Data was entered and analyzed in SPSS 16.0.

Results: During the selected study duration acute myeloid leukaemia was diagnosed in 173 patients on bone marrow examination. Out of these 123 (71.1%) were males and 50 (28.9%) were females. Thirty (17.3%) of the patients fell in paediatric age group (< 15 years) while the remaining 143 (82.7%) were in adult age category  (> 15 years). The mean age of presentation was 9 years among paediatric patients and 44.5 years among adults. The overall mean age of both these two groups was 38.4 years (3-84 years). Fever (71.6%), generalized weakness (34.1%) and pallor (23.7%) were the three main complaints of the patients, followed by splenomegaly and lymphadenopathy. The mean total leukocyte count, haemoglobin and platelet count were 57.4 x 10⁹/L, 7.9 g/dL and 54 x 10⁹/L respectively. AML-M2 was found to be the most frequent FAB AML subtype among 72 (41.6%) paediatric and adult patients.

Conclusion: The main signs and symptoms of the patients of AML presenting to our centre were fever, generalized weakness and pallor. AML-M2 was found to be the most common FAB subtype among AML in children and adults.