Acute Myeloblastic Leukaemia Presenting with Superior Vena cava Syndrome Due to Mediastinal Mass

Abstract

A patient with acute leukaemia presenting with superior vena cava syndrome due to a large mediastinal mass is reported. The presence of blast cells with Auer rods in peripheral blood and bone marrow allowed the diagnosis of acute myeloblastic leukaemia. Following intensive chemotherapy the patient achieved a complete remission, with disappearance of the signs of venous obstruction and normalization of the chest roentgenogram. Although no histopathological documentation of the mediastinal tumor was available, its myeloblastic origin was assumed in view of the clinical course.

Granulocytic sarcoma of the pancreas successfully treated with intensive chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation

“…On the whole all observed cases indicate the importance of an initial correct diagnosis for this peculiar extramedullary leukemic localisation, that is potentially aggressive but curable if treated before bone marrow involvement (3, 5, 6, 14–16). The application of immunohistochemical techniques on routinely tissue sections is necessary to allow the differential diagnosis between GS and other forms of neoplasms.…”

Intrathoracic Myeloid Sarcoma

“…A literature search revealed 27 other reported cases of intrathoracic myelocytic sarcomas, with 6 cases causing superior vena cava syndrome 4,5,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] (Table 1). Of the 28 reported cases, 13 patients (46%) responded to treatment, 11 (39%) died, 1 patient signed out against medical advice before receiving treatment, and in the other 3, the clinical course was not reported.…”

Granulocytic sarcoma of the pancreas: a report of two cases and literature review

“…All long‐term survivors reported in the literature received systemic therapy soon after diagnosis ( Neiman et al . 1981 ; Gardella et al . 1984 ; Eshghabadi et al .…”

“…(1981) retrospectively studied 61 cases of GS with biopsy and reported the most common sites of involvement to be bone, periosteum, soft tissues, lymph nodes, and skin. Multiple other sites of involvement have been reported in the literature and include the mediastinum ( Banerjee & Silva 1981; Gardella et al . 1984 ; Kubonishi et al .…”

“…Neiman et al (1981) retrospectively studied 61 cases of GS with biopsy and reported the most common sites of involvement to be bone, periosteum, soft tissues, lymph nodes, and skin. Multiple other sites of involvement have been reported in the literature and include the mediastinum (Banerjee & Silva 1981;Gardella et al 1984;Kubonishi et al 1984;Schwarzmeier et al 1986;Liu et al 1988;Garaventa et al 1989;Varma et al 1991;Chubachi et al 1993), central nervous system (Mahendra et al 1994), testis (Economopoulos et al 1994), pleura and pericardium (Rege et al 1993), prostate (Thalhammer et al 1994), orbit (Girardot et al 1996), kidney (Bagg et al 1994), female urogenital tract (Friedman et al 1992), and gastrointestinal tract (Russell et al 1988;Catalano et al 1991).…”