Incidence and Clinical Profile of Leukemia in Children

Abstract

to lok for the incidence and profile of leukemia in hospitalized children, a two years prospective study was carried out in the postgraduate Medical Institute, Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar from 1st Jan 1996 to 31st December 1997. A total of 188 cases were clinically suspected as leukemias and subjected to bone marrow examination and other  relevant investigations. Only 70 cases were diagnosed as leukemias. the study included 50 males and 20 females with ages ranging between 1 to 14 years. Fever (94%), Palor (85.5%) and bone pains (36%) were the major symptoms, while anemia (88.5%), , hepatomegaly (77%), splenomegaly (68.6%) and lymnphadenopathy (64%) were the main signs recorded. The peripheral blood smear revealed blast cells (95%), anaemia (88.5%) and low platelets in (80%) cases. The final diangosis was based on bone marrow examination. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (93%) was the commonest diagnosis. Common - ALL (74.3%) was the major subtype, followed by Null Cell Leukemia (11.4%) and T-Cell Leukemia (7.2%). Acute myeloid leukemia accounted for 5.7% cases only. One cases was diagnosed as chronic ceosinophil leukemia. The details of the study with relevant literature review is detailed in the text.