Diabetes insipidus in preleukaemic phase of acute myeloid leukaemia in 2 patients with empty sella turcica. A report of 2 cases.

2 patients with diabetes insipidus established in the preleukaemic phase of acute myeloid leukaemia are described. Both patients had probably coincidentally an empty sella turcica showed by a computerized tomography. In one of them, leukaemia developed secondary to a cytostatic therapy for a vesical cancer. In this patient, blast cells appeared in cerebrospinal fluid after the patients had become polyuric and later on autopsy findings showed a peripituitary leukaemic infiltrate. In the other patient, diabetes insipidus and the acute phase of leukaemia developed after a long period with a dysmyelopoietic syndrome. Hormonal tests suggested a hypothalamic injury in both patients due to a leukaemic infiltrate at least in the former of them. It is concluded that diabetes insipidus as a consequence of hypothalamic lesion may develop in the preleukaemic phase of acute myeloid leukaemia and become evident before any other symptoms of leukaemia have manifested.