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Auer rods in mature granulocytes of a patient with mixed lineage leukemia

Auer rods in mature granulocytes of a patient with mixed lineage leukemia
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Author: Svetlana Dmitrienko; Suzanne Vercauteren
Category: Myeloid Neoplasms and acute leukemia (WHO 2016) > Acute leukemias of ambiguous lineage > Mixed phenotype acute leukemia with t(v;11q23); KMT2A rearranged
Published Date: 10/29/2012

A17-year-old previously healthy male presented with an incidental finding of pancytopenia and circulating blast cells in the peripheral blood. Bone marrow aspirate and biopsy showed a large population of blast cells. Blast cells showed variability in size, variable amount of cytoplasm, and vacuoles in the cytoplasm. Some contained azurophilic granules. The nuclei were irregular with folding and variably prominent nucleoli. A small population of dysplastic-appearing mature granulocytes contained single or multiple cytoplasmic Auer rods (see figure). Blasts did not contain Auer rods. Flow cytometry showed mixed lineage leukemia. Approximately 90% of blast cells expressed TdT and CD34 with T-cell markers CD2 and CD7 and cytoplasmic and surface CD3. CD4 and CD8 expression was absent. In addition, these blasts expressed the myeloid markers CD13, CD15, and CD117. There was partial dim expression of cytoplasmic CD22.