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Mixed-phenotype acute leukemia is a group of blood cancers which have combined features of myeloid and lymphoid cancers. It is a rare disease, constituting about 2–5% of all leukemia cases. It mostly involve myeloid with either of T lymphocyte or B lymphocyte progenitors, but in rare cases all the three cell lineages. Knowledge on the cause, clinical features and cellular mechanism is poor, making the treatment and management difficult.
The name "mixed-phenotype acute leukemia" was adopted by the World Health Organization in 2008 to include leukemias of ambiguous lineage, acute undifferentiated leukemias and natural killer lymphoblastic leukemias. According to WHO criteria, myeloid lineage is characterised by the presence of myeloperoxidase, while B and T lymphoid lineages are indicated by the expression of CD19 and cytoplasmic CD3.