CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2020; 41(01): 102
DOI: 10.4103/ijmpo.ijmpo_68_19
Letter to Editor

Concurrent Hairy Cell Leukemia and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Implications

Mahmood Dhahir Al-Mendalawi
Department of Paediatrics, Al-Kindy College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
› Author Affiliations
Financial support and sponsorship Nil.

Sir,

In October–December 2018 issue of the Indian Journal of Medical and Paediatric Oncology, Anoop et al.[1] described a case of concurrent hairy cell leukemia (HCL) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in a 68-year-old Indian patient. Regrettably, the authors did not attempt to explain the rare concurrent occurrence of two tumors in the studied patient. I presume that the following point might be relevant. As individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are at an increased risk to develop various tumors,[2] I presume that an intrinsic genetic predisposition to multiple tumors’ development in the studied patient might have been enhanced by the underlying HIV-related immunosuppression. In view of substantial HIV seroprevalence of 0.26% in India compared with a global average of 0.2%,[3] I presume that HIV testing in the studied patient employing the diagnostic panel of blood CD4 lymphocyte count and viral overload estimations would have to be solicited. If that panel was to reveal HIV positivity, the case in question could be regarded a novel case report of HIV-associated concurrent HCL and CLL in the literature.



Publication History

Received: 08 March 2019

Accepted: 20 June 2019

Article published online:
23 May 2021

© 2020. Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.)

Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
A-12, 2nd Floor, Sector 2, Noida-201301 UP, India

 
  • References

  • 1 Anoop P, Patil CN, Sandhya V, Dhande S, Janardan K, Ahlawat S. Concurrent hairy cell leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia: Diagnostic and therapeutic implications. Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2018; 39: 557-8
  • 2 Valencia Ortega ME. Malignancies and infection due to the human immunodeficiency virus. Are these emerging diseases? Rev Clin Esp 2018; 218: 149-55
  • 3 Paranjape RS, Challacombe SJ. HIV/AIDS in India: An overview of the Indian epidemic. Oral Dis 2016; 22 (01) Suppl 10-4