- To be diagnosed as smoldering Adult T-cell Leukemia (ATL), the patient must have a normal lymphocyte count (less than 4 times 10^3/mm^3), less than or equal to 5 percent abnormal lymphocytes on morphologic examination of the peripheral blood smear or on fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis (cells with a homogenous staining pattern and a greater than 1 log increase in the magnitude of fluorescence emission of the anti-Tac peak over background expression),