Transient leukemia in down syndrome: report of two cases with review of literature.

Transient leukemia (TL) also referred to as transient abnormal myelopoiesis (TAM) or transient myeloproliferative disorder (TMD) is a unique syndrome that frequently occurs in newborns with Down syndrome (DS). It manifests in the first few days of life and shows leukocytosis with blast cells in the blood and bone marrow. This leukemia resolves spontaneously within first few months of life in the majority of cases. In this report we describe two newborns with a karyotype of 47,XY,+21, presented with marked leukocytosis and many blast cells in the peripheral blood. In both the cases, the blasts disappeared and the total leukocyte count reverted to normal without any specific treatment.