Pseudoleukemia in Alcoholism

To the Editor.— The existence of hematologic abnormalities secondary to alcoholism has been well documented. 1 Hematologic abnormalities secondary to septicemia are also known to occur, and when sepsis has occurred in chronic alcoholics, an especially severe form of leukopenia has been reported. 2 Bone marrow examination in these patients showed virtual absence of any granulocyte precursors except promyelocytes and myelocytes. With treatment of the infection, subsequent bone marrow examination showed rapid recovery of the granulocyte elements. A not dissimilar bone marrow picture has been described in patients recovering from drug-induced agranulocytosis, wherein the descriptive term "pseudoleukemia" was applied to the clinical situation because of the initial differential problem in a patient with anemia, thrombocytopenia, and severe leukopenia. 3 Because we feel that this term could be extended to include the picture of the alcoholic patient with sepsis, we report here the case of an alcoholic patient with overwhelming pneumococcal