Arsenic had been used in treating malignancies from the 18th to mid-20th century. In the past 3 decades, arsenic was revived and shown to be able to induce complete remission and to achieve, when combined with all-trans retinoic acid and chemotherapy, a 5-year overall survival of 90% in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia driven by the t(15;17) translocation-generated promyelocytic leuke...

Background. Acute promyelocytic leukemia is characterized by t(15;17). This leads to the formation of PML/RARα which blocks the differentiation of blasts at the stage of promyelocytes. This is reversed by all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA), a vitamin A derivative. Acute myocardial ischemia is a rare side effect of ATRA. Case Report. We report a case of acute coronary syndrome manifesting as an adve...

Acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia remain devastating diseases. Only approximately 40% of younger and 10% of older adults are long-term survivors. Although curing the leukemia is always the most formidable challenge, complications from the disease itself and its treatment are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Such complications, discussed herein, include ...

Acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia remain devastating diseases. Only approximately 40% of younger and 10% of older adults are long-term survivors. Although curing the leukemia is always the most formidable challenge, complications from the disease itself and its treatment are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Such complications, discussed herein, include ...

Tightly regulated expression of the transcription factor PU.1 is crucial for normal hematopoiesis. PU.1 knockdown mice develop acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and PU.1 mutations have been observed in some populations of patients with AML. Here we found that conditional expression of promyelocytic leukemia-retinoic acid receptor alpha (PML-RARA), the protein encoded by the t(15;17) translocation f...

BACKGROUND The secondary genetic changes other than the promyelocytic leukemia-retinoic acid receptor (PML-RARA) fusion gene may contribute to the acute promyelocytic leukemogenesis. Chromosomal alterations and mutation of FLT3 (FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3) tyrosine kinase receptor are the frequent genetic alterations in acute myeloid leukemia. However, the prognostic significance of FLT3 mutati...

The APL language is well known for its peculiar symbols which have inhibited the use of this language in many programming environments. Making APL documents of good quality has been difficult and expensive. We describe here a simple way how to use METAFONT to generate an APL font for Tk,X by using existing font definitions as far as possible.

All-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) induces complete remissions in the majority of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. Despite continuous p.o. ATRA administration, many patients relapse after a short remission duration. In these patients, ATRA plasma concentrations were found to be very low, which was related to induction of retinoic acid-binding protein and increased drug catabolism by cyto...

Tumor cells obtained from leukemia and lymphoma patients were investigated for specific insulin receptors. Using radioactive 125I-labeled insulin, specific insulin binding sites were demonstrated on most acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) cells, including acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML), and acute monocytic leukemia (AMoL) ...