Background: Global death toll of Acute Leukemia (AL), as a heterogeneous group of hematopoietic malignancies, is rather high, i.e. almost 74% of 300,000 new cases die every year. This reflects a poor prognosis of this malignancy in most parts of the world, where contemporary and rather complex remedies are not available. There are a few well documented reports about the epidemiologic features of AL at national level in Iran. This retrospective study demonstrates demographic and laboratory features of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) patients admitted to the main referral oncology hospitals in the ex-Iran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran (Firoozgar and Rasoul-Akram hospitals) during the last decade (2001-2011).
Methods: Medical records of all patients admitted to the both hospitals diagnosed with AML and ALL were reviewed during the study period for demographic, biological and clinical characteristics at diagnosis.
Results: Four-hundred fifty five patients were diagnosed with AML and ALL, who admitted to the both hospitals during ten years, of whom 59.6 % (271 patients) were male. Fifty five percent of patients had AML and 44.6 % had ALL, both significantly dominated in men (p<0.001). AML patients died more significantly (p<0.05) and the most deaths occurred in older patients (p<0.001). Initial WBC count was significantly related to death (p= 0.001), where the least death (13%) occurred in the group with initial WBC between 5-10×10(3)/μL and most of deceased had an initial WBC more than 10×10(3)/μL. Logistic regression showed that age, fever and WBC were significant prognostic factors.
Conclusion: Demographic characteristics of AL patients were almost the same as other global reports. Most deaths occurred in older patients, those who had fever, and patients with higher WBC count at first admission, which warrants more investigations accurately and also improvements in hospital records.
Keywords: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia; Acute Myeloid Leukemia; Epidemiology; Iran.