A novel translocation t(1;7)(p36;q34) in three patients with acute myeloidleukaemia

Studies of large numbers of patients have enabled the identification of rel atively infrequent chromosome changes, such as inv(3)(q21;q26), t(6;9)(p23: q34) and t(8;16)(p11;p11), whose clinico-biological significance is gradual ly becoming clearer. Translocations involving chromosomes 1 and 7 are relat ively rare in myeloid neoplasias, being found in far less than 1% of cases; the rearrangement that occurs most frequently consists of an unbalanced tr anslocation [t(1;7)(p11; p11)], resulting in complete loss of 7q, associate d with therapy-related or environmentally-induced high-risk myelodysplasia. We recently observed three cases of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) with a p reviously unreported balanced translocation t(1;7) (p36;q34). Case 1 underw ent autologous bone marrow transplantation and remains alive in CR; cases 2 and 3 relapsed after 10 and 4 months, respectively. The response to chemot herapy observed in our cases suggests that variable clinical features might be present in the broad cytogenetic category usually referred to as '7q ab normalities' and contributes to an interesting previous observation of prol onged disease-free survival in a subset of AMLs with 7q- as the isolated ch romosome change.