Rare aggressive natural killer cell leukemia presented with bone marrow fibrosis - a diagnostic challenge

Aggressive natural killer cell leukemia is an extraordinary rare aggressive malignant neoplasm of natural killer cells. Although its first recognition as a specific entity was approximately 20 years ago, this leukemia has not yet been satisfactorily characterized as fewer than 200 cases have been reported in the literature and up to our knowledge, this is the first case report in Qatar. Reaching a diagnosis of aggressive natural killer leukemia was a challenging experience, because in addition to being a rare entity, the relative scarcity of circulating neoplastic cells, failure to obtain an adequate aspirate sample sufficient to perform flow cytometric analysis, together with the absence of applicable method to prove NK clonality (as it lack specific clonal marker); our case had atypical confusing presentation of striking increase in bone marrow fibrosis that was misleading and complicated the case further. The bone marrow fibrosis encountered may be related to the neoplastic natural killer cells’ chemokine profile and it may raise the awareness for considering aggressive natural killer leukemia within the differential diagnosis of leukemia with heightened marrow fibrosis.