Journal of Clinical Case Reports

Vitamin B12 Deficiency Mimicking Acute Leukemia in a Child

Abstract

Hikmet Gulsah Tanyildiz, Baris Malbora, Sule Yesil, Sibel Akpinar Tekgunduz, Mehmet Onur Candir, Ceyhun Bozkurt and Gurses Sahin

Tanyildiz HG, Malbora B, Yesil S, Candir MO, Bozkurt C, Sahin G. Vitamin B12 Deficiency Mimicking Acute Leukemia in a Child. Deficiency of vitamin B12 is an important cause of megaloblastic anemia and bone marrow depression. Morphological and functional changes in bone marrow are observed related with vitamin B12 deficiency. Most importantly dysplastic changes can be mistaken as myelodysplastic syndrome or acute leukemia. In adult cases of vitamin B12 deficiencies mimicking acute leukemia were reported. Our case is an alerting example of vitamin B12 deficiency in children mimicking acute leukemia with dysplastic findings.