Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases
Open Access

Abstract

Unusual Hairy Projections in a Case of T-acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a Cause for Diagnostic Dilemma: A Case Report

Venkatesan Somasundaram, Ankur Ahuja, Prabhu Manivannan, Dinesh Chandra, Abhishek Purohit and Renu Saxena

T lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) is a neoplasm of lymphoblasts committed to T-cell lineage and T-ALL is diagnosed by identification of immaturity markers and the lineage specific Cluster of Differentiation (CD) marker, CD3 in the leukemic cells. Here we report a 20 year old male who was diagnosed as case of T-ALL, whose leukemic blasts on morphology resembled the lymphoid cells seen in hairy cell leukemia (HCL) resulting in a diagnostic dilemma which was resolved subsequently by immunophenotyping. Even though the presence of cells with hairy projections is rarely reported in haematological malignancies other than HCL, ours is a first of its kind in TALL.