A pathological study of eye involvement in acute leukemia of childhood.

The eyes of 60 children dying of acute leukemia between 1968 and 1976 at the Children's Hospital Medical Center have been examined pathologically. An attempt has been made to relate eye findings to the state of the systemic disease at the time of death. Eight of the 60 patients had leukemia retinal infiltrates and all eight had fulminant disease with terminal leukocyte counts over 100,000 per cubic millimeter and a high percentage of "blast" cells. Twenty-six patients (43%) had leukemic infiltration of the choroid which was not apparent clinically, but which would require therapy in any effort to eradicate leukemic cells from the body. Five of six patients with optic nervic involvement had coexistant meningeal leukemia. Isolated retinal hemorrhages could not be correlated with other parameters of the leukemic process.