[Acute leukemias in elderly patients (author's transl)].

We conducted an investigation of 186 randomly selected acute adult leukemia patients in order to examine how far age and subtype of leukemia can be correlated with survival rate. The diagnosis of leukemia was established by cytochemical and cytomorphological techniques. There was an increased frequency of acute myelogenic leukemias in older patients. The age group of the 61-90 year old showed a significant decrease in the survival rate, but at the same time in this age group there was a higher frequency of leukemia types with poor prognosis. Early deaths were correlated with advanced age of patients. There were no long time survivors (with survival rates longer than 4 years after diagnosis) above the age of 57.