Benzene and Leukemia

Abstract

HYPOREGENERATIVE and aplastic types of hemopathy brought about by exposure to benzene were described in the nineteenth century, and the question of leukemic myelosis from the same cause has been debated since the first description of a case of leukemia referred to the action of benzene.¹ A paper by Cronkite² (1961) summarizes the natural history of "benzene leukemia." From this and other American papers on benzene poisoning it seems that the European and especially the Italian literature on benzene leukemias is poorly known. Therefore, we thought that it would be of some interest to give a short account of the . . .