Acute undifferentiated leukaemia with undifferentiated myeloid sarcoma: case report and literature review

Abstract Background: With the advancement of diagnostic technology, true acute undifferentiated leukaemia is becoming more rare, and acute undifferentiated leukaemia with extramedullary sarcoma has not been reported.Case presentation: This article reports a case of acute undifferentiated leukaemia with extramedullary sarcoma. Flow cytometric analysis of the bone marrow and lymph nodes indicated that the tumour cells of both were of the same origin and mainly expressed stem cell markers and CD7, no myeloid-specific markers, T-lymphoblastic-related markers, and B-lymphoblastic-related markers. Although the priming regimen combined with azacitidine was ineffective, complete remission was achieved by switching to azacitidine combined with HIA (homoharringtonine, idarubicin plus Ara-C). Conclusions: To diagnosis de novo acute leukemia with extensive and comprehensive cellular immune maker detection is available and credible, the expression of a single relatively non-specific myeloid antigen as a immune maker to detect AUL or AUL associated with sarcoma is precise and effective in our case, which patient was benefit from HIA regiment.