Recent reports have described the occurrence of acute myelogenous leukemia in patients with Hodgkin's disease.1-3 This occurrence was believed to relate to therapy rather than to a transitional stage in Hodgkin's disease. The development of acute myelogenous leukemia in patients with lymphocytic lymphoma is distinctly unusual,4 although the termination of reticulum cell sarcoma as acute myeloid leukemia has been reported,5,6 in which case it usually occurs within 12 months of the diagnosis of reticulum cell sarcoma has generally not been associated with radiotherapy. The incidence of acute myelogenous leukemia in patients with solid tumors is not significantly increased over expected figures, although a higher than expected coincidence has been reported by some observers between chronic lymphocytic leukemia and solid tumors.7,8
The increasing use of high dose radiotherapy, particularly in patients with lymphoma, prompts us to report two patients with lymphocytic lymphoma, one patient with laryngeal