Khalid A. Al-Anazi¹, Khalid I. Eltayeb², Mohammed Bakr² and Fahad I. Al-Mohareb²

¹Section of Adult Hematology and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant, Oncology Centre, King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam, Saudi Arabia. ²Section of Adult Hematology and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant, King Faisal Cancer Centre, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  

Abstract

For many years, methotrexate has been used in the treatment of certain chronic medical disorders e.g. rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis as well as a number of malignant disorders e.g. acute lymphoblastic leukemia, certain types of lymphoma and breast carcinoma. Its use has been associated with various systemic toxicities and complications. The association between methotrexate therapy and the development of lymphoma and pseudolymphoma is well established. In patients treated with methotrexate, the development of leukemia has been attributed to either the primary disorder e.g. rheumatoid arthritis or to other drugs used concomitantly e.g. cyclophosphamide. Reported here are two patients with rheumatoid arthritis and one patient with psoriasis treated with low dose methotrexate for variable periods of time. Two of these patients developed acute myeloid leukemia on myelodysplastic syndrome background, while the third patient developed pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia that expressed few myeloid markers and had a positive philadelphia chromosome. To our knowledge, these are the first reported cases of methotrexate-induced acute leukemia.