Examination of a peripheral blood smear demonstrates a leukemia composed of small mature lymphocytes without blast forms. Which of the following is the most likely age of this patient?
1 year
45 years
5 years
65 years
Different leukemias tend to affect populations of different ages. The disease described is chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), which is a disease of older adults. Both the one year-old and the five year-old would be most likely to have acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). The 45 year-old would be likely to have either AML or chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML).