Abstract
Background: South-South geopolitical region of Nigeria is a region rich with oil exploration activities. The people in this region
are exposed to petroleum products which is one of the factors associated with leukaemia. There are limited data on leukaemia
among these people. This study sought to document the clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with leukaemia from
this region. Materials and methods: One hundred and sixty-three (163) case notes of patients from this region with the diagnosis
of leukaemia over a ten-year period (January 1999 to December 2008) were reviewed. Clinical and laboratory profiles of the
patients were extracted and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 15.Results: Leukaemia
was found to be more common in males (52.1%) than in females (47.9%). The mean ages at diagnosis of the various subtypes
of leukaemia were noted as follows: Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) 4.4±2.3 years, acute myeloid leukaemia (AML)
25.6±3.3 years, chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) 35.2±2.8 years and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) 57.1±4.3. The
mean duration of symptoms prior to presentation was found to be shortest (0.5 month) in AML and longest (11.5 months) in
CLL. Weakness (82.2%) was found to be the most frequent symptom. This was followed by fever (78.5%), weight loss (54.6%),
and bone pain (31.9%). The most common physical signs were pallor (71.2%), splenomegaly (66.3%), and hepatomegaly
(47.8%). Haematocrit was found to be reduced below the reference ranges in all the leukaemias but the reduction was more in
the acute leukaemias than in the chronic leukaemias. Total white cell count was moderately elevated in the acute leukaemias
but markedly increased in the chronic leukaemias. Male patients had higher haematocrit, white cell count, and platelet count at
presentation than the female patients. Conclusion: The clinical and laboratory features of the patients from this study were
similar to what have been reported widely in literature, but the patients in our study presented late and had shorter median
survival compared to their counterpart in the developed world.