The author reports the case of a patient with chronic lymphatic leukemia, who after some years developed dyspeptic symptoms, increasing cachexia, and eventually died. The leukemia had been subleukemic for several years. Necropsy revealed an adenocarcinoma of the pylorus and lymphatic leukemic changes in the lymph nodes, spleen and liver. In two other cases a lymphatic leukemic blood picture and clinical signs of leukemia (including lymph node enlargements and leukemic changes in the bone marrow) gradually disappeared as tumors of the stomach developed, and in both cases the leukemic blood picture was replaced by a state of lymphopenia. In one of them, the necropsy revealed an adenocarcinoma of the pylorus; in the other, necropsy could not be obtained, but the clinical picture and the radioscopic examinations strongly suggested carcinoma of the stomach in this case, too. These last two cases must be interpreted as lymphatic leukemoid states produced by the presence of the carcinomatous neoplasms, though the possibility can not be excluded that certain carcinomas of the gastrointestinal tract may be capable of primarily or secondarily exercising an inhibitory influence on the leukemic processes.

In connection with the report of these cases, the author reviews the cases from the literature, of lymphatic reactions in cancer and of the coexistence of lymphatic leukemia and cancer in the same individual.

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© 1949 by American Society of Hematology, Inc.
1949
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