Acute myelomonocytic leukaemia and multiple myeloma after sulphinpyrazone and colchicine treatment of gout.

Abstract

Acute myelomonocytic leukaemia and multiple myeloma after sulphinpyrazone and colchicine treatment of gout Mild haematological toxicity was noted during a five-month study in which 22 patients with gout received the uricosuric drug sulphinpyrazone (table 1).Eight developed a moderate granulocytopenia compared with only four out of 22 age-and sex-matched controls with rheumatoid arthritis.This difference was not, however, stat- istically significant (P=0 3).In a long-term study fatal blood dycrasias occurred in three out of 25 patients with gout who took sulphinpyrazone for 2-8 to 14 years and colchicine intermittently for shorter intervals. Case reportsCase 1-A 69-year-old house painter with a rnine-year history of gout received sulphinpyrazone regularly and-colchicine intermittently during the four years before his death from acute myelomonocytic leukaemia in 1962.No exposure to solvents was recorded.The terminal illness was characterised by considerable anaemia, thrombocytopenia, a preponderence of inmature lymphocytes with monocytoid features in the peripheral blood, and hepatic and splenic leukaemic infiltrates at necropsy.