[Acute leukemia frequency observed in a reference hospital].

OBJECTIVE: to compare the frequency of acute leukemia in two periods of study in a reference Hospital at Mexico City. METHODS: it was an observational study. There were registered 250 cases with the morphology diagnostic criterion of acute leukemia. RESULTS: 63 cases versus 92 of acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) and 16 versus 79 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) of 1990-1992 versus 2008-2009 respectively was observed; corresponding to 62 % in total of ALL in both periods and 38 % of AML. The ALL was the most frequent variant (62 % versus 38 %). The median age was 26 years, male 52 %. It showed a significant increase in the number of admissions in the period of 2008-2009 and acute promyelocytic leukemia also showed an increase (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: acute leukemia is the main cause of admission, mortality and morbidity. Our study differs slightly from the literature; the leukemia that diagnostic with major frequency was the acute lymphoid leukemia increasing his number in the period of 2008-2009. The significant rise due to an increase use of new diagnostic tools such as the flow cytometry and molecular biology.