ARTHRITIS AS MAIN PRESENTATION OF ACUTE LEUKAEMIA: A CASE REPORT

Background: Acute leukaemia presents with history of symptoms less than 6 weeks and joint involvement may be found in few cases. Joint involvement in leukaemia may be confused with transient synovitis, septic arthritis, osteomyelitis, reactive arthritis. It can create difficulty in the diagnosis of main disease since clinical, biochemical and radiological investigations are not pathognomic of leukaemia. It will cause delayed commencement of appropriate treatment and interventions and thus increase in severity of disease which will ultimately lead to mortality. Case presentation: We report a case of a 22 year male who presented with a one and half month history of large joint polyarthritis which was a case of acute myeloid leukaemia masquerading as polyarthritis.