1. ¹Department of Hematology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PR China
2. ²Institute of Hematology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PR China
3. ³Key Laboratory of Hematopoietic Malignancies, Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PR China

Correspondence: Professor J Jin, Department of Hematology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310003, PR China. E-mail: jiej@hzcnc.com

⁴These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received 20 March 2008; Revised 24 March 2009; Accepted 2 April 2009; Published online 28 May 2009.

Abstract

Geographic heterogeneity of cytogenetic patterns in hematological malignancies has been reported earlier, but few systematic studies of cytogenetic abnormalities in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients are available. We examined the karyotypic patterns in 1432 de novo AML patients from a single center in China and compared our data with reports from other regions of the world. Chromosomal abnormalities were detected in 746 (58%) cases. The most frequent cytogenetic abnormality was t(15;17), detected in 14% of successful cases, followed by t(8;21) in 8%, and t(9;22), +21 and +8 each in 2%. The mean age of patients with a translocation karyotype was significantly younger than that of patients with normal, deletion or trisomy karyotypes. A higher incidence of AML M3 and a lower frequency of M4 were observed in the Asian population and the frequencies of certain cytogenetic aberrations were different from those in the earlier reports. Population-based age-specific incidences of AML were calculated and compared with those in western reports.