Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Mar 14, 2019
Page range: 213 - 218
Received: Oct 18, 2018
Accepted: Feb 17, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2019-0014
© 2019 Hans-Jonas Meyer, Maximilian Beimler, Gudrun Borte, Wolfram Pönisch, Alexey Surov, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Myeloid sarcoma (MS), also known as granulocytic sarcoma or chloroma, is a solid tumor of extramedullary localization composed of malignant primitive myeloid cells. The purpose of the study was to identify clinical and imaging features in a large patient sample.
Patients and methods
Overall, 71 cases (34 females (47.9%) and 37 males (52.1%) with a median age of 56 (± 16 years) of histopathologically confirmed myeloid sarcoma were included into this study. The underlying hematological disease, occurrence, localizations and clinical symptoms as well as imaging features on computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging were investigated.
Results
In 4 cases (5.63%) the manifestation of MS preceded the systemic hematological disease by a mean value of 3.8 ± 2.1 months. In 13 cases, first presentation of MS occurred simultaneously with the initial diagnosis of leukemia, and 51 patients presented MS after the initial diagnosis of the underlying malignancy with a mean latency of 39.8 ± 44.9 SD months. The visceral soft tissue was affected in 26 cases, followed by the cutis/subcutis was affected in 21 cases. Further localizations were bones (n = 13), central nervous system (n = 9), lymph nodes (n = 4) and visceral organs (n = 9).
Conclusions
MS is a rare complication of several hematological malignancies, predominantly of acute myeloid leukemia, which can affect any part of the body. In most cases it occurs after the diagnosis of the underlying malignancy, and affects frequently the cutis and subcutis.