Chromosome 5 abnormalities in acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

We report two cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia with involvement of chromosome 5. One of them showed a del(5)(q13q33) in a 5-year-old boy who had previously received antineoplastic chemotherapy for an L1-ALL that had been diagnosed nine months before. The other one showed a t(5;7)(q12-13;q36) together with a t(8;14)(q24;q32) and a der(1) in a 66-year-old man with an L3-ALL. Both chromosome 5 aberrations are interpreted as evolutionary events. In the first case, it was secondary to chemotherapy treatment; in the second, an evolutionary chromosome rearrangement, considering the translocation between chromosomes 8 and 14 as the primary cytogenetic event.