The 8p11 anomaly in "monoblastic" leukaemia.

We report on three cases of monoblastic leukaemia with a chromosomal breakpoint at 8p11. One of our cases exhibited a translocation t(8;16) as has been described in 12 previous cases reported in 1987. The two other cases showed respectively t(6;8) and t(8;19) and they seem to be the first two reports of variant translocation in this disease. The available cases serve to define the main characteristics of this new subtype of non lymphocytic acute leukaemia: phagocytosis in most of the cases, the possible involvement of a granulomonocytic precursor, and a common breakpoint in 8p11.