LEUKEMIA

Abstract

Although a voluminous literature exists on the subject of leukemia, there have been few studies dealing with a large series of cases in which autopsy was done. For this reason we have felt justified in reporting our study to correlate clinical and pathologic observations in all types of leukemia. Most studies usually deal with only one type or with one or a few of the problems of the complex subject of blood dyscrasias. This is well illustrated in the excellent monograph by Forkner 1 on leukemia written in 1938 and by subsequent papers on this subject. In this paper we have reviewed and critically examined 123 fatal cases of leukemia. This group was selected from 14,400 consecutive autopsies performed at the Cook County Hospital from 1929 to March 1941 and represents an incidence of 0.86 per cent. With a few exceptions data from a complete postmortem examination and studies of