1974 Volume 15 Issue 7 Pages 764-773
The clinical and pathological findings of 4 patient with leukemia, that is, 3 cases of acute lymphocytic leukemia and one case of chronic granulocytic leukemia, who showed especially atypical type of interstitial pneumonia, probably caused following the administration of antileukemic drugs, and resulted in death following the extremely rapid downhill course.
It was the clinical characteristic features that the signs in each case began with high fever ranging 38°C to 40°C of several days durations before the abnormal findings of the chest X-ray appeared, and that sudden deaths occured in a week against the treatment with various antibiotics, followed with poor physical symptoms of respiratorysystem such as rales, cough and sputum.
The characteristic histopathological features were the edematous and fibrous thickning of alveolar wall, exudation of hyalinous or fibrinous substances into the alveolar cavities and the atypical changes of the alveolar and bronchial epithelia. There were no findings which were suggestive of viral, fungal or pneumocystiscarini infections.
Consequently, it appears most likely that the vascular injuries due to the antileukemic drugs might play a most important role for inducing these pulmonary lesions. As the possibillity that the drug allergy may take a part in this pathogenesis, it was discussed that the further investigation will be awaited.
