Frequency of Different Types of Leukemia in Bone Marrow- Study at a Tertiary Care Center, Lucknow

Leukemia is one of the most common types of cancers worldwide. It was first recognized in the year 1845. Leukemia is a heterogeneous group of malignancies, broadly divided into acute and chronic leukemia with further sub-classification into lymphoid and myeloid varieties. In 2000, nearly 2,056,000 children and adults around the world were found suffering from leukemia, and 2,009,000 died from it. World Health Organization (WHO) has classified leukemia and lymphomas into various entities on the basis of their clinic-morphological features, immunophenotyping, cytogenetic and molecular biology. Many factors related to the development of leukemia’s are prior chemotherapy, hereditary syndromes, ionizing radiation, viruses, and smoking. People with leukemia’s are treated with a combination of therapy including chemotherapy (main treatment), antibiotic, blood transfusion, radiation therapy, and bone marrow transplantation. These treatment modalities have prolonged the survival rate of patients with leukemia.

Materials and Methods: We carried out a study to see the frequencies of ALL, AML, CLL and CML, diagnosed in our hospital. Study also aimed at calculating frequencies as per World Health Organization (WHO) classified leukemia on the bone marrow studies. We assessed the retrospective data of patients diagnosed as leukemia in the Department of Pathology Era’s Lucknow Medical College & Hospital, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

Results: An upward trend in incidence of leukemia with age was seen, although the acute leukemia’s were more common in patients below 20 years of age. The total number of males who participated in this study were 116[40.6%] while females were 170[59.4%]. Maximum patients were in the age group 21-30 years. The prevalence percentage of leukemia seen in our study was more in the age group of 51-60 and 71-80 years. Males were seen to be afflicted more than females in all age groups. No correlation between the gender of the patients and type of leukemia was seen on applying Fischer Exact test. Acute leukemia show a greater prevalence in second decade.

Conclusion: The present study revealed that acute leukemia was more prevalent than chronic leukemia in second decade. The most common type of leukemia was CML followed by AML, ALL and CLL. No overall correlation of type of leukemia with gender was seen although more males were afflicted with leukemia’s than females.