Autopsy and clinical findings in acute leukemia and chronic myeloproliferative diseases--an evaluation of 104 patients.

In acute myeloid leukemia (AML-46 patients) and various entities of chronic myeloproliferative diseases (CMPD-58 patients) an evaluation and comparison of clinical and postmortem findings has been performed. This study included also aspirates and core biopsies of the bone marrow which were initially taken on admission of those patients. Classification of CMPD was done following the concept of Georgii et al. (1984) into CGL -24-, CMGM-6-, E-MS-13- and MS/OMS-15 cases. There was a significant increase in blastic crisis in CGL compared with the other entities and in the latter a prolongation of the total course of disease due to a long period between symptoms--clinical diagnosis. As revealed by the autopsies causes of death were mostly infections (pneumonia, septicemia-50%) and lethal hemorrhages (gastrointestinal and cerebral--about 30%) in both AML and CMGM patients. Rare causes comprised fatal pulmonary embolism due to a peripheral thrombocytosis in CMPD, acute rupture of the spleen and extensive leukemic infiltrates of the myocard in AML. In addition to the well known giant enlargement of the spleen in MS/OMS, the relatively high frequency of a meningeal involvement (meningeosis leukemica) in AML (about 35%) and during an acute transformation in CMPD (up to 30%) was conspicuous. The examination of the bone marrow at various sites became feasible during the postmortem procedure and thus provided the opportunity to investigate the development and extent of a myelosclerosis evolving in CMPD. In contrast to the a- or hypoplasia and regeneration of the hematopoiesis following chemotherapy, the evolution of myelosclerotic lesions showed a very uniform pattern throughout the skeleton and obviously no reversal of a manifest MS/OMS after cytotoxic treatment.