The co-presence of deletion 7q, 20q and inversion 16 in therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia developed secondary to treatment of breast cancer with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and radiotherapy: a case report

Abstract

Introduction. Therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia occurs as a complication of treatment with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunosuppressive agents or exposure to environmental carcinogens. Case presentation. We report a case of therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia in a 37-year-old Turkish woman in complete remission from breast cancer. Our patient presented to our facility with fatigue, fever, sore throat, peripheral lymphadenopathy, and moderate hepatosplenomegaly. On peripheral blood and bone marrow aspirate smears, monoblasts were present. Immunophenotypic analysis of the bone marrow showed expression of CD11b, CD13, CD14, CD15, CD33, CD34, CD45 and human leukocyte antigen-DR, findings compatible with the diagnosis of acute monoblastic leukemia (French-American-British classification M5a). Therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia developed three years after adjuvant chemotherapy consisting of an alkylating agent, cyclophosphamide and DNA topoisomerase II inhibitor, doxorubicin and adjuvant radiotherapy. Cytogenetic analysis revealed a 46, XX, deletion 7 (q22q34), deletion 20 (q11.2q13.1) karyotype in five out of 20 metaphases and inversion 16 was detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization. There was no response to chemotherapy (cytarabine and idarubicin, FLAG-IDA protocol, azacitidine) and our patient died in the 11th month after diagnosis. Conclusions: The median survival in therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia is shorter compared to de novo acute myeloid leukemia. Also, the response to therapy is poor. In therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia, complex karyotypes have been associated with abnormalities of chromosome 5, rather than 7. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia showing the co-presence of deletion 7q, 20q and the inversion 16 signal. © 2012 Yonal et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd