Tetraploidy acute myeloid leukaemia after chromosome 16 inversion.

Our patient is a 36-year-old man referred by his general physician to the Department of Hematology because of mild neutropenia in a routine analysis at work. There was no history of previous diseases, and examination was normal. Blood investigations confirmed the neutropenia and showed elongation of prothrombin time. A bone marrow examination was performed revealing about 10% of myeloblasts on the aspirate smears. A cytogenetic study showed chromosome 16 inversion in all of these cells and tetraploidy only in some of them, which were extremely large in size. According to the revised WHO classification of tumours (2008), the patient was diagnosed as a case of acute myeloid leukaemia with chromosome 16 inversion.