Acute lymphoblastic leukemia historical perspective

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Carlos A Lopez, M.D. [2], Kamal Akbar, M.D.[3]

Leukemia was first described in 1827 by Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau, a French physician.

• The first published illustration of a case of leukemia in medical text dates to 1827, when a French physician named Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau described a 63-year-old florist who developed an sickness denoted by fever, weakness, urinary stones, and substantial enlargement of the liver and spleen^[1]

• Velpeau saw that the blood of this patient had a texture that was “like gruel”, and thought that the blood appeared white due to the white corpuscles.^[2]

• In 1845, a number of patients who passed away with enlarged spleens and changes in the “colors and consistencies of their blood” was publicized by the Edinburgh-based pathologist J.H. Bennett; he used the term “leucocythemia” to outline this pathological condition.^[1][3]

• The term “leukemia” was introduced by Rudolf Virchow, the acclaimed German pathologist, in 1856.

• As a visionary in the use of the light microscope in pathology, Virchow was the first to talk about the abnormal overabundance of white blood cells in patients with the clinical syndrome reported by Velpeau and Bennett^[1]

• As Virchow was not certain of the cause of the white blood cell excess, he used the exclusively depictive term “leukemia” (Greek: “white blood”) to refer to the condition.^[4]

• Wilhelm Ebstein coined the term “acute leukemia” in 1889 to decipher rapidly progressive and fatal leukemias from the more indolent chronic leukemias.^[5]

• The technique of bone marrow examination to diagnose leukemia was first narrated in 1879 by Mosler.^[6]

• Finally, in 1900 the lymphoblast, which is the malignant cell in acute lymphoid leukemia, was described by Naegeli, who seperated the leukemias into myeloid and lymphocytic.^[7][8]

Template:WH Template:WS