Orbital Swelling: An Unusual Case of Relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in A Preschool Child

Abstract

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most frequent childhood cancer. Children usually present with signs of bone marrow failure like recurrent or prolonged fever, pallor, lethargy, bleeding tendencies, bone pain and others. Occasionally they may present with sign of infiltration of leukaemic cells into other organs such as testicular and central nervous system, rarely to the periorbital or orbital region. Similarly in relapse cases, they typically presented either in bone marrow, central nervous system relapse or testicular but rarely orbital involvement. Here we report the clinical case of a five-year-old boy who developed relapsed B-ALL, presented to us with unilateral right eye swelling without other clinical findings and absence of blast cells in the peripheral blood film as well as bone marrow aspirate specimen.

Acute onset facial oedema: an unusual presentation of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in a child

“…Facial swelling as a presenting feature of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is rare. There are case reports of subacute orbital or periorbital swelling as a presentation of childhood leukaemia,1–12 but these were due to a radiologically evident local mass. A further case report of chronic forehead swelling was due to leukaemic skin infiltration and multiple bony frontal skull lesions 13.…”