Monosomy 7 in acute basophilic leukemia

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Monosomy 7 as the sole abnormality of an acute basophilic leukemia.” (Cancer Genet Cytogenet. 2007 Jan 15;172(2):168-71). Authors are Shin SY, Koo SH, Kwon KC et al., from the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chungnam National University Hospital, Daejeon, South Korea. The authors report the case of a 72-year-old man who had the very rare disease acute basophilic leukemia (ABL) with the sole chromosomal finding of a monosomy 7. Most nuclear cells in the peripheral blood and bone marrow samples were either basophils or blasts. Electron microscopic evaluation showed the typical ultrastructure, with basophil and immature mast cell granules. Cytogenetic study revealed monosomy 7 in all metaphase cells, and this finding was confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization. The Philadelphia chromosome was absent. To the authors`s knowledge, the case reported here is the first to have basophilic leukemia with monosomy 7 as the only chromosome abnormality. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.