A clinical study of twenty cases of erythroleukemia (di Guglielmo's syndrome)

Abstract

Erythroleukemia, or the di Guglielmo syndrome, is defined as a form of acute leukemia, closely related to acute myeloblastic leukemia, in which there is an inordinate proliferation of red cell precursors as well as of granulocyte precursors. The di Guglielmo disease, or erythremic myelosis, is that phase of the clinical spectrum of erythroleukemia in which the proliferation of abnormal red cell precursors so predominates that the abnormal white cells are relatively inapparent. Twenty cases of erythroleukemia, which were seen during a six year period at Memorial Hospital, were studied and their clinical manifestations described. The clinical course is comparable to that of any other acute leukemia. In none of these twenty cases was there any substantial response to chemotherapy. The possible relationships between erythroleukemia, the myeloproliferative syndromes and certain other blood dyscrasias are discussed.