Clinical implications of acute myeloid leukemia presenting as myeloid sarcoma

In this retrospective study, we aim to analyze the characteristics, treatments, and overall survival of all patients presenting with isolated myeloid sarcoma (MS) or MS with concomitant acute myeloid leukemia (AML) compared with all patients with AML, treated during the same period. We identified patients with AML with or without MS at diagnosis, presenting to our medical center between the years 1990 and 2005. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups regarding gender, age, cytogenetic risk groups, rate of complete remission, number of cycles of chemotherapy needed to achieve complete remission, and rate of first relapse. The time to death in the MS group was not significantly different (p=0.60) from the AML group, and radiotherapy did not affect the median time to death. Transplantation prolonged survival in both groups (p=0.018 and p<0.0001, respectively). Patients with MS at diagnosis might benefit from upfront aggressive treatment with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.